ACADEMICAL    ADDRESSES 


J.  I.  VON  DOLLINGEE 


PRINTED    BY 

SPOTTISWOODE   AND    CO.,    NEW-STREET    SQUARE 
LONDON 


STUDIES 

IN 

EUEOPEAN    HISTOEY 

BEING 

ACADEMICAL    ADDRESSES 

DELIVERED    BY 

JOHN  IGNATIUS  VON  DOLLINGEE,  D.D. 

LATE    PROFESSOR    OF   ECCLESIASTICAL    HISTORY 
IN    THE    UNIVERSITY   OF    MUNICH 


TRANSLATED  AT  THE  REQUEST  OF  THE  AUTHOR 

BY 

MARGARET    WARRE 


WITH   PORTRAIT 


LONDON 

JOHN    MURRAY,    ALBEMARLE     STREET 

1890 

All    rights    reserved 


• 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE 


THE  translation  of  the  following  Addresses  was  undertaken 
at  the  request  of  the  late  Professor  Dr.  von  DOLLINGER,  who 
himself  selected  those  which  he  wished  to  be  published  in 
England  and  in  English. 

It  was  not  without  much  hesitation  that  the  responsi- 
bility entailed  by  such  a  task  was  accepted.  It  is  not 
without  apprehension  lest  the  original  may  have  lost  much 
in  the  translation  that  the  work  is  now  offered  to  the 
public. 

The  venerable  author  of  the  Addresses  saw  only  a  part 
of  the  translation.  His  long  and  eminent  career  was 
brought  to  a  close  before  it  could  be  completed ;  and  thus 
the  work  has  suffered  the  irreparable  loss  of  his  criticism 
and  correction. 

The  grateful  acknowledgments  of  the  Translator  are 
due  in  the  first  place  to  the  Eev.  ALFRED  PLUMMEE,  D.D.,  of 
Durham  University,  who  most  kindly  read  through  and 
revised  the  MS.  of  the  translation ;  to  Mr.  F.  W.  CORNISH, 
of  Eton  College;  to  Mr.  JOHN  MURRAY,  jun..  and  his  sister 


[6]  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

Miss  MURRAY,  who  have  looked  through  and  corrected  the 
proof  sheets  ;  and  to  the  Kev.  Dr.  WARRE,  Head  Master  of 
Eton,  who  (in  the  absence  of  the  Translator  abroad)  has 
revised  the  whole,  and  has  seen  the  work  through  the 
press.  Lastly,  it  is  to  the  great  kindness  of  the  Eight 
Hon.  W.  E.  GLADSTONE,  M.P.  that  the  work  is  indebted 
for  the  frontispiece,  which  is  copied  from  a  picture  in  his 
possession — an  excellent  likeness  of  the  venerable  and 
learned  author. 


CONTENTS 


PAQB 

I.    THE   SIGNIFICANCE    OP    DYNASTIES   IN    THE    HISTORY   OP 

THE    WORLD     ........  1 

II.    THE    HOUSE  OF  WITTELSBACH  AND  ITS  PLACE  IN  GERMAN 

HISTORY              ........  26 

III.  THE    RELATION   OF    THE    CITY   OP   ROME    TO    GERMANY    IN 

THE    MIDDLE    AGES  .......  58 

IV.  DANTE    AS   A    PROPHET              ......  80 

V.    THE  STRUGGLE   OF   GERMANY  WITH    THE    PAPACY   UNDER 

THE    EMPEROR    LUDWIG    OF    BAVARIA  .  .  .119 

VI.    AVENTIN   AND    HIS   TIMES 139 

VII.    ON   THE    INFLUENCE    OF    GREEK     LITERATURE    AND   CUL- 
TURE    UPON     THE    WESTERN    WORLD    IN   THE    MIDDLE 

AGES '.  164 

VIII.    THE    ORIGIN    OF    THE    EASTERN    QUESTION        .            .            .  188 

IX.   THE    JEWS    IN    EUROPE 210 

X.  UPON   THE    POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT 

OF    SPAIN 243 

XI.  THE    POLICY    OF    LOUIS    XIV.              .....  265 

XII.    THE   MOST   INFLUENTIAL   WOMAN   OF   FRENCH    HISTORY  .  325 

INDEX     .  417 


ACADEMICAL   ADDRESSES 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  DYNASTIES  IN  THE 
HISTORY  OF  THE   WOELD1 

THE  beginnings  of  national  and  political  life  lie  beyond  our 
recollection,  yet  it  is  certain  that  the  oldest  known  form 
under  which  they  appeared  was  monarchical,  not  republican. 
Now  whether  this  form  was  of  the  nature  of  a  patriarchate, 
the  paternal  rule  in  the  family,  of  a  theocratic  priesthood, 
a  military  leadership,  or  a  civil  judgeship;  or  whether, 
now  and  then,  royalty  appeared  at  the  very  outset  as  a 
pure  uncompromising  despotism,  the  preference  for  mon- 
archy asserts  itself  as  a  law  in  human  nature,  as  the 
primitive  manifestation  of  political  instincts. 

The  transition  from  the  single  ruler  to  the  king,  that 
is  to  say,  to  hereditary  monarchy,  is  likewise  the  result  of  a 
law  universally  implanted  in  human  nature.  Purely  elective 
monarchies,  which  ignore  the  hereditary  principle,  are 
beacons  of  warning  in  history ;  they  have  invariably  con- 
tained the  germs  of  corruption  and  dissolution,  and  their 
formation  has  frequently  betokened  a  period  of  political 
and  moral  decay  in  a  nation.  They  have  always  been 

1  Lecture  delivered  March  20,  1880,  at  the  public  meeting  of  the  Koyal 
Bavarian  Academy  of  Science.  Printed  now  for  the  first  time,  it  may  serve 
as  an  introduction  to  the  lecture  which  follows,  which  was  delivered  some 
months  later  at  the  meeting  of  the  Academy  upon  the  occasion  of  the  com- 
memoration of  the  700th  year  of  the  reign  of  the  house  of  Wittelsbach  in 
Bavaria. 


2  'V  'THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  DYNASTIES.  i 

conducive  to  bribery  in  one  form  or  another,  for  electors 
have  been  prone  to  turn  the  privilege  of  a  vote  into  a 
matter  of  personal  profit.  Elective  bodies  have  besides 
always  been  apt  to  fall  a  prey  to  party  divisions,  and  to 
elect,  not  the  worthiest  candidate,  but  the  man  most  likely 
to  prove  useful  to  his  party.  It  is  of  the  highest  import- 
ance to  a  political  organism  that  the  unity,  the  unbroken 
continuity,  of  supreme  authority,  should,  by  embodiment 
in  a  ruling  family,  be  preserved  in  the  eyes  of  all  against 
the  unstable  wills  of  passing  generations.  The  king  born 
to  the  throne,  and  he  alone,  is  the  representative  of  the 
nation  in  past  and  present,  the  living  tradition  of  political 
organisation.  The  hereditary  monarch  not  only  bears  the 
responsibility  of  the  past ;  he  is  accountable  also  for  the 
future.  He  is  conscious  that  his  sins  of  omission  and 
commission  must,  for  good  or  for  evil,  bear  fruit  for  those 
who  come  after  him.  It  has  been  remarked  that  the 
subjects  of  elective  states  and  spiritual  principalities  ex- 
hibit, as  a  rule,  no  attachment  to  their  princes.  The  news 
of  the  death  of  a  pope  was  always  received  with  indifference 
in  the  States  of  the  Church,  and  it  was  not  otherwise  in  the 
German  ecclesiastical  states.  Personal  loyalty  has  been 
exclusively  reserved  for  the  rulers  who  belonged  to  an 
hereditary  dynasty. 

The  great  monarchies  whose  historical  traditions  reach 
back  for  as  many  as  twenty  or  thirty  centuries  before 
Christ,  have  embalmed  the  remembrance  of  a  long  series 
of  dynasties. 

Twenty-six  dynasties  are  reckoned  to  have  reigned  in 
Egypt  before  the  year  525  B.C.,  when  by  the  Persian 
conquest  the  fall  of  the  Pharaohs  was  achieved.  Mere 
names  for  the  most  part;  yet  to  some  of  these,  such  as 
Sethos  and  Eamses  II.,  splendour  still  attaches,  whilst 
mighty  architectural  remains  and  inscriptions  survive  to 
testify  to  the  grandeur  and  exploits  of  others  amongst  these 
monarchs. 

Little  insight  can  be  gained  into  the  history  of  the 


i  IN   THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   WORLD  3 

two  Asiatic  empires,  the  Assyrian  and  the  Babylonian ;  yet 
in  both  alike  polygamy  and  the  life  of  the  hareem  are 
already  perceptible  in  full  development,  producing  con- 
sequences which,  in  subsequent  periods  as  well,  have  never 
failed  to  attend  them. 

During  a  period  of  230  years,  eighteen  kings  of  the 
house  of  the  Achsemenidae  successively  ruled  the  Persian 
Monarchy,  and  the  dynasty  ranks  pre-eminent  as  the  most 
brilliant  of  the  pre-Christian  era.  The  religion  of  Zoroaster 
imparted  a  spirit  of  conquest  to  the  monarchs  of  this  race,  by 
whom  the  national  energy  was  quickened  through  continual 
foreign  wars.  A  policy  of  conquest  was  the  principle  which 
upheld  the  dynasty.  Two  monarchs,  however,  Cyrus  and 
Darius  L,  were  likewise  religious  reformers.  The  fact  that 
so  long  a  period  should  have  elapsed  in  the  hereditary 
states  of  Persia,  unmarked  either  by  rebellion  or  a  change 
of  dynasty,  may  very  properly  be  attributed  to  the  pro- 
tection afforded  to  the  monarch  by  the  religious  aspect  in 
which  he  was  regarded.  The  internal  history  of  the  family 
was,  however,  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  outward  splendour 
of  its  career ;  revealing  a  tissue  of '  bloody  crimes  and  un- 
natural atrocities — marriages  with  sisters  and  daughters, 
and  such  frequent  murder  of  relatives,  that,  according  to 
the  expression  of  Justinus,  parricide  and  fratricide  had 
become  the  established  custom  of  the  race.  Only  two ' 
Persian  Monarchs  died  a  natural  death.  Meanwhile  the 
law  of  Persia  had  decreed  that  the  king  might  justifiably 
act  in  all  ways  as  he  pleased.  This  is  the  first  signal 
instance  in  history  in  which  it  may  be  seen  to  what  a 
depth  of  moral  corruption  a  dynasty,  and  through  it  a 
people,  can  be  brought  by  the  atmosphere  of  the  hareem 
and  the  intrigues  of  eunuchs. 

The  Persian  Monarchy  is  more  aptly  termed  an  empire 
than  a  monarchy.  It  extended  over  the  greater  part  of 
the  known  world,  and  in  one,  at  least,  of  its  monarchs 
the  ambition  was  aroused  of  founding  a  universal  mon- 
archy. 

B   2 


4  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF   DYNASTIES  i 

The  features  which  characterise  the  development  of 
most  Oriental  states  and  dynasties  are  already  apparent  in 
the  Persian  Monarchy.  The  ruler  becomes  transformed 
from  the  warrior  chief  and  tribal  king  into  the  court-king, 
screened  by  an  obsequious  nobility  from  the  sight  and 
approach  of  his  people.  An  elaborate  ceremonial,  rigidly 
enforced,  serves  at  once  to  isolate  him  and  at  the  same 
time  to  give  him  the  semblance  of  real  authority. 

The  Greeks  began  their  historical  career  with  restricted 
monarchy,  which,  however,  soon  passed  into  republics  in 
each  town.  On  the  other  hand,  two  Semitic1  races,  the  Jews 
and  the  Arabs,  followed  an  opposite  course  in  their  national 
development.  Each,  under  very  different  circumstances, 
passed  from  democratic  conditions,  in  which  the  distinction 
of  tribe  and  family  presented  the  only  organisation,  into  a 
state  of  monarchy.  The  Jews,  when  a  considerable  time 
had  elapsed  since  their  migration  into  Palestine,  were 
moved,  in  imitation  of  the  surrounding  nations,  whose 
hostility  they  dreaded,  to  unite  themselves  under  the 
centralising  bond  of  a  supreme  head.  David,  their  second 
king,  was  the  first  to  found  a  dynasty,  the  vitality  of  which 
was  sustained  henceforward  by  the  glory  of  its  founder 
and  the  hope  of  the  promises  made  to  him.  The  monarchs 
of  this  royal  house  moved  freely  amongst  the  people,  and 
were  at  all  times  accessible  to  those  who  applied  to  them 
for  assistance.  But  amongst  them  also  polygamy  bore 
poisonous  fruits,  nor  were  intrigue  and  violence  wanting, 
after  the  fashion  of  Oriental  courts. 

The  spirit  of  disruption  re-awoke  no  later  than  under 
David's  grandson ;  the  ten  tribes  rebelled,  and  formed  a 
separate  kingdom  which  lasted  until  the  captivity,  a  king- 
dom nevertheless,  according  to  the  prophet  Hosea,  not  of 
God's  grace,  but  of  His  wrath.  Twenty  kings  reigned  in 
succession,  springing  from  nine  different  houses,  a  change 
of  dynasty  being  usually  accompanied  by  bloodshed.  Both 
kingdoms  perished  through  their  own  fault,  yet  it  is  worthy 
of  notice  that  Judah  with  her  single  royal  house  survived 


i  IN   THE   HISTORY   OF  THE   WOELD  5 

the  hostile  sister  kingdom  and  her  nine  dynasties  by  about 
a  century  and  a  half. 

The  Eoman  Empire  during  the  whole  period  of  its 
existence,  which  was  little  short  of  five  hundred  years, 
established  no  regular  succession  to  the  throne,  nor  any 
genuine  dynasty.  This  may  in  part  be  attributed  to  the 
disordered  state  of  family  ties,  many  emperors  not  having, 
nor  indeed  desiring  to  have,  sons,  as  well  as  to  the  political 
hypocrisy  with  which  the  imperial  government  was  intro- 
duced and  established  by  Augustus  and  his  immediate 
successors  ;  the  legal  foundation  of  an  hereditary  succession 
being  incompatible  with  the  retention  of  republican  forms. 
Hence  the  custom  arose  for  an  emperor  to  designate  his 
successor  by  adoption,  by  investing  him  with  the  title  of 
Caesar,  or  by  associating  him  during  his  own  lifetime  in  the 
regency.  Once  only  did  the  senate  arrive  at  making  a  free 
choice ;  the  elevation  of  an  emperor,  as  well  as  his  deposi- 
tion and  death,  rested,  as  a  rule,  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  the 
Praetorian  Guards  and  of  the  legions.  The  introduction  and 
triumph  of  Christianity  brought  about  no  essential  change 
in  this  respect.  The  numerous  family  of  Constantine, 
which  seemed  to  bespeak  a  lasting  dynasty,  wrought  out 
its  own  destruction  in  the  space  of  fifty  years. 

The  Graeco-Byzantine  Empire  affords  instances  of  the 
son  succeeding  the  father,  or  the  nephew  the  uncle,  more 
frequently  when  the  father  had  during  his  lifetime  asso- 
ciated the  son  with  himself  as  co-emperor  or  Caesar,  or  when 
the  son  happened  to  have  been  porpliyrogennetos,  born  in 
the  purple,  i.e.  after  his  father's  accession  to  imperial 
honours.  But  breaks  in  the  succession  were  not  wanting, 
whenever  the  army  or  the  fleet  interfered  to  set  up  the 
emperor  of  its  choice.  The  house  of  Heraclius  managed  to 
retain  the  imperial  power  for  a  considerable  period,  and  sa 
also  did  the  Isaurian  house  of  Iconoclast  emperors,  both 
founded  by  successful  generals.  In  instances  where  the 
father  on  his  deathbed  appointed  a  regent  to  govern 
during  the  minority  of  his  son,  it  usually  fell  out  th&t  the- 


6  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  DYNASTIES  i 

young  prince  was  murdered,  blinded,  or  forced  to  adopt  the 
monastic  tonsure. 

During  the  one  thousand  years  that  this  empire  endured, 
the  house  of  the  Comneni  must  be  cited  as  the  most 
vigorous.  At  a  time  of  great  pressure  during  the  twelfth 
century,  three  highly-gifted  emperors  of  that  race  rescued 
the  tottering  empire  from  destruction.  The  fresh  splendour 
with  which  these  rulers  surrounded  the  Byzantine  throne 
was,  however,  speedily  obscured  by  the  Latin  conquest,  a 
catastrophe  from  which  the  Eastern  Empire  was  never  again 
able  to  rise  to  strength  and  prosperity. 

Wide  as  is  the  difference  that  severs  the  Asiatic  from 
the  European  mind,  and  Islam  from  Christendom,  it  does 
not  exceed  the  distinction  which  sunders  the  dynasty  of  the 
Moslem  world  from  the  character  of  the  ruling  families  of 
Christendom.  The  successors  of  the  Prophet,  brandishing 
the  Koran  in  one  hand  and  the  sword  in  the  other,  priest- 
kings  and  warriors,  outwardly  pledged  to  respect  the  pre- 
cepts of  the  Koran,  but  virtually  possessed  of  unlimited 
power,  received  the  title  of  Kaliph,  and  were  chosen  by 
election  in  accordance  with  the  Arab  custom  of  setting 
up  or  deposing  tribal  chiefs.  A  legally  established  here- 
ditary succession  there  was  not.  Amongst  as  many  as 
fourteen  sovereigns  chosen  from  the  Ommiades,  four  only 
were  succeeded  by  their  sons,  and  amongst  the  first  twenty- 
four  kaliphs  not  more  than  six.  The  election  became 
more  and  more  a  mere  form,  and  as  a  rule  it  was  the 
reigning  kaliph  who  nominated  bis  successor,  and  caused 
him  to  be  forthwith  formally  recognised.  Not  long  after 
the  death  of  Mohammed  the  question  of  the  succession  to 
the  kaliphate  led  to  the  great  schism  of  the  Sunnis  and 
Shiites,  which  is  still  kept  up  with  undiminished  bitter- 
ness. 

Amongst  empires  which  owe  their  greatness  and  vitality 
to  the  energetic  spirit  of  a  ruling  dynasty,  that  of  the 
Osmanli  stands  pre-eminent.  Under  a  succession  of 
sultans,  all  alike  men  of  intellect  and  activity,  the  Osman 


IN  THE   HISTORY  OF  THE  WORLD  7 

Empire  grew  and  flourished,  until  it  surpassed  in  might 
and  extent  the  empire  of  Charles  the  Great.  The  culmi- 
nating pinnacle  of  power  and  magnificence  was  attained 
under  Suleiman  II.,  the  contemporary  of  Charles  V.,  when, 
after  the  taking  of  Constantinople,  he  assumed  the 
kaliphate,  and  the  Shereef  of  Mecca  transmitted  to  him 
the  keys  of  the  Kaaba  in  acknowledgment  of  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  supremacy  of  the  monarch.  The  Sultans, 
without  exception,  belonged  to  the  race  of  Osman ;  but 
their  mothers  were,  in  most  cases,  slaves.  Islam,  indeed, 
owed  much  to  the  support  of  renegade  Christian  slaves, 
who  became  most  serviceable  instruments  in  the  hands  of 
their  masters.  The  inmates  of  the  Sultan's  hareem,  in- 
cluding crowds  of  concubines  and  odalisques,  supplied  him 
with  numerous  descendants.  In  default  of  any  fixed  law 
of  succession,  the  father  could  nominate  any  one  of  his 
sons  to  follow  him  upon  the  throne.  Mohammed  the 
Conqueror,  moved  by  fear  of  the  constant  intrigues  of 
mothers  and  sons — the  saying  of  Tacitus,  '  solita  fratrum 
odia,'  holds  good  in  the  hareem — and  by  the  dangers  of 
civil  war  and  palace  revolutions,  issued  a  dynastic  decree 
compelling  future  monarchs,  '  for  the  peace  of  the  world,' 
immediately  upon  accession,  to  put  their  brothers  to  death. 
A  similar  object  was  attained  in  Persia  by  causing  them 
to  be  blinded.  This  decree  proved  ineffectual  to  prevent 
the  downfall  of  the  Osman  dynasty.  Sultans  began  to  adopt 
the  fatal  policy  of  retaining  their  sons  as  prisoners  in  the 
hareem,  instead  of  sending  them  as  hitherto  to  be  governors 
in  the  provinces.  Hence  it  came  to  pass  that  the  throne  of 
an  empire  of  which  the  fabric  had  been  founded  and  sus- 
tained entirely  by  the  personal  qualities  of  its  rulers  was 
filled  by  a  succession  of  weaklings. 

The  sultans  ceased  henceforth  to  attend  the  divan  in 
person,  and  left  the  direction  of  affairs  in  the  hands  of 
their  viziers.  The  deposition,  imprisonment,  and  murder 
of  these  phantom  sovereigns  soon  became  a  matter  of 
frequent  occurrence.  Systematically  educated  in  incapa- 


8  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  DYNASTIES  i 

city,  they  fell  under  the  guidance  of  an  hereditary  olig- 
archy, the  Effendis  of  Stamboul,  who  knew  how  to  render 
themselves  indispensable  by  ministering  to  their  vices.  No 
dynasty  can  in  the  end  withstand  the  baneful  effects  of 
polygamy  and  of  education  in  the  hareem.  The  fate  of  the 
empire  was  predestined  by  the  Koran  and  the  religious 
traditions  of  the  Sunnis.  Where  polygamy,  slavery, 
murder,  religious  oppression  and  persecution  are  unassail- 
able principles,  sanctified  by  the  example  of  the  Prophet 
himself,  no  reform  and  no  recovery  is  possible  for  a  body 
politic  thus  sick  unto  death. 

The  Mongols,  before  whose  world-wide  conquests  and 
desolating  power  Asia  and  Europe  alike  trembled  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  failed  nevertheless  in  the  attempt  to 
weld  together  the  various  tribes  by  the  establishment  of 
a  lasting  dynasty.  Genghis  Khan,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Slav  '  Seniorat,'  removed  the  tribal  chieftain,  a  relative  of 
his  own,  who  ruled  under  the  title  of  Chakan  or  *  Prince  of 
princes,'  to  substitute  his  own  third  son  Ogotai ;  and  the 
right  of  the  latter  was  recognised  in  a  great  popular 
assembly  in  1228. 

One  of  the  most  extraordinary  transformations  recorded 
in  history  was  accomplished  amongst  this  people.  The 
Buddhist  religion  converted  these  rude  nomad  tribes  into 
a  harmless,  peaceable  people,  not,  however,  without  their 
being  considerably  reduced  in  numbers.  A  third  of  the 
male  population  still  lives  under  monastic  vows,  and  spends 
its  days  in  prostration  before  the  Dalai-lama  of  Thibet. 
For  in  Thibet,  where  the  religion  of  Buddha  found  free 
space  for  development,  being  neither  fettered  by  political 
restraints  nor  contaminated  by  earlier  forms  of  faith,  the 
supreme  power  is  vested  in  the  hands  of  the  Lamas,  the 
largest  priestly  hierarchy  upon  earth,  whose  chief,  wor- 
shipped as  the  incarnation  of  the  Godhead,  unites  in  his 
person  both  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal  power.  His 
office  has  now  become  dependent  upon  the  imperial  court  of 
Pekin.  So  long  as  marriage  was  permitted  to  the  high 


i  IN  THE  HISTOKY  OF  THE   WORLD  9 

priest,  and  he  held  his  dignity  by  inheritance,  the  dynasty 
was  one  of  divine  incarnations.  The  successor  was  always 
the  same  Priest-God,  who  in  dying  was  immediately  born 
again.  But  with  the  introduction  of  celibacy  it  became 
needful  to  provide  for  the  succession  in  some  other  way, 
and  out  of  three  boys  selected  for  the  purpose,  one  is  now 
chosen  by  lot. 

The  royal  dynasty  of  Japan  is  peculiarly  constituted, 
and  cannot  be  compared  with  the  dynastic  institutions  of 
other  states.  Its  history  commences  with  that  of  the 
nation  in  B.C.  660.  The  Japanese,  like  the  Egyptians, 
claim  to  have  been  originally  governed  by  a  divine  race  of 
kings,  from  whom  their  later  sovereigns  were  likewise 
descended.  From  the  above-mentioned  date,  122  mikados 
or  emperors  have  followed  in  unbroken  succession  upon 
the  throne.  Their  jurisdiction  was  both  spiritual  and 
temporal.  The  grafting  of  Buddhism  upon  the  Sintu  or 
ancient  religion  of  the  country  in  the  sixth  century  after 
Christ,  brought  no  alteration  in  the  position  and  twofold 
supremacy  of  the  mikado. 

During  hundreds  of  years  Christian  states  have  re- 
peatedly failed  in  establishing  an  uninterrupted  suc- 
cession of  monarchs  to  the  throne,  but  this  difficulty  was 
obviated  in  Japan  by  the  appointment  of  four  imperial 
families  from  among  whom,  upon  the  failure  of  the  direct 
line,  a  mikado  might  be  given  to  the  state.  This  has  not, 
however,  prevented  boys  and  women  and  even  young  girls 
from  occasionally  occupying  the  throne.  The  mikado 
became  in  process  of  time  more  and  more  pushed  into  the 
background  by  the  relatives  who  surrounded  him,  offshoots 
of  the  numerous  royal  wives  and  concubines,  until,  in  A.D. 
1292,  Shogun,  general  in  chief  of  the  imperial  forces, 
succeeded  in  making  his  own  office  hereditary  and  in  con- 
centrating in  it  for  himself  and  his  descendants  the  whole 
of  the  governing  power.  From  that  moment  the  mikado, 
overwhelmed  with  ceremonial  homage,  and  fettered  by  an 
elaborate  and  wearisome  court  etiquette,  retained  scarcely 


10  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  DYNASTIES  i 

the  shadow  of  power.  The  constitutional  reform  of  1868 
has  put  an  end  to  this  state  of  things,  when  even  Japan 
recognised  the  necessity  of  abolishing  the  law  which  pro- 
hibited foreigners  from  admission  into  the  country. 

Amongst  nations  of  Teutonic  race  in  the  earliest  stage 
hereditary  sovereignty  and  self-government  through  elected 
magistrates  are  both  observable.  Most  of  the  tribes 
which  at  the  period  of  the  great  migration  settled  upon 
Eoman  territory  brought  their  kings  with  them, — most,  I 
say,  for  the  Alemanni,  for  instance,  had  none.  The  kings 
were  created  by  election,  the  choice  being  usually  confined 
to  one  particular  family,  or  they  forthwith  became  founders 
of  such  a  family.  As,  however,  by  contact  and  mingling  of 
the  Eoman  population  with  their  German  conquerors,  new 
relations  were  formed,  the  princes  found  it  necessary  to 
adapt  their  rule  to  the  needs  of  a  people  accustomed  to 
other  laws  and  customs.  Their  administration  consequently 
grew  more  and  more  into  conformity  with  Eoman  practice, 
and  monarchy,  as  we  find  it  amongst  the  Visigoths, 
Ostrogoths,  and  Merovingians,  assumed  a  more  absolute 
form.  The  close  relations  which  sprang  up  between  the 
royal  dynasties  and  the  church  operated  in  the  same 
direction.  The  pernicious  practice  of  partitioning  the 
kingdom  amongst  the  sons  of  the  sovereign  was  the  fre- 
quent occasion  of  fratricidal  and  civil  strife  both  amongst 
the  Merovingians  in  Gaul  and  the  Lombards  in  Italy. 
These  evils  were  avoided  in  Spain  by  the  Visigoths,  who 
maintained  the  principle  of  the  integrity  of  the  kingdom. 
Nevertheless  neither  amongst  the  Visigoths  nor  the 
Lombards  did  any  family  succeed  in  securing  hereditary 
possession  of  the  throne  ;  and  regicide  was  not  un  frequent 
either  amongst  these  two  or  amongst  the  Merovingians. 
Seven  violent  changes  in  the  succession  were  made  by  the 
Visigoths  during  the  period  of  their  monarchy,  which  com- 
prises a  list  of  thirty-five  kings.  The  facility  with  which 
the  Moslem  invaders  from  Africa  annihilated  the  Visigothic 
Kingdom  in  a  single  battle  was  plainly  the  result  of  internal 


i  IN   THE   HISTORY   OF  THE  WORLD  11 

decadence.  Spain  owed  her  ruin  to  the  want  of  an  here- 
ditary line  of  kings,  just  as  from  the  same  cause  the 
Lombard  Kingdom  in  Italy  ingloriously  succumbed  not  long 
afterwards  to  the  shock  of  the  Franco-Gallic  invasion. 

Two  dynasties,  possessing  otherwise  few  features  in 
common,  resemble  one  another  in  this,  that  in  both  cases 
an  unparalleled  rise  and  continued  growth  was  followed 
suddenly  by  an  irretrievable  downfall.  The  Carlovingian 
family,  beginning  with  the  elder  Pepin,  rose  during  the  life- 
time of  three  great  men,  Charles  Martel,  Pepin  II.,  and 
Charles  the  Great,  to  the  dignity  of  the  imperial  title,  and 
to  the  sovereignty  over  the  whole  of  civilised  or  half- 
barbarian  Europe.  But  even  under  Louis  the  Pious,  the 
son  of  Charles  the  Great,  decay  had  set  in  ;  it  is  sufficiently 
marked  by  the  difference  between  the  father  and  son, 
During  the  173  years  that  the  Carlovingian  race  still  con- 
tinued on  the  throne,  it  produced  not  a  single  other  prince 
of  high  capacity.  Charles  the  Simple  died  despised  and 
forgotten ;  his  grandsons  Lothar  and  Louis  the  Child  were 
poisoned.  The  mighty  inheritance  of  Charles  the  Great 
was  reduced  to  the  single  town  of  Noyon  and  the  surround- 
ing territory.  And  so  the  Franks  turned  their  backs  upon 
the  Carlovingian  house  from  which  their  affections  had 
become  estranged,  and,  passing  over  the  claim  of  the  right- 
ful heir  Duke  Charles  of  Lorraine,  let  the  royal  power  fall 
into  the  hands  of  a  new  dynasty,  the  Capetian,  which  thus 
began  its  course  of  800  years.  The  Germans  meanwhile, 
repudiating  the  claims  of  the  elder  house,  had  elected  Duke 
Conrad  of  Franconia  as  their  king.  The  Carlovingians  had 
merited  their  fate.  Continually  engaged  in  fratricidal  wars 
and  in  quelling  the  rebellions  of  their  sons,  they  overlooked 
the  growing  power  of  their  vassals,  who  assiduously  fomented 
these  family  quarrels  which  led  to  the  final  downfall  of  the 
house. 

When  Germany  by  the  expulsion  of  the  Carlovingians 
became  an  independent  kingdom,  with  which  the  imperial 
title  was  soon  afterwards  combined,  the  Teutonic  custom  of 


12  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF   DYNASTIES  i 

election  by  the  nobles,  and  of  preserving  at  the  same  time 
the  hereditary  line  of  succession,  continued  in  force.  The 
formal  election  of  the  sovereign  was  in  fact  no  more  than 
the  confirmation  of  his  title  by  the  nation,  or  by  the  nobles 
who  represented  the  nation.  The  kings  further  sought  to 
secure  their  position  by  causing  the  election  and  coronation 
of  the  son  during  the  father's  lifetime.  But  whilst  in 
France  elective  rights  were  entirely  swallowed  up  by  those 
of  hereditary  succession  (the  unity  and  strength  of  the 
kingdom  and  the  development  of  monarchical  power  being 
thus  guaranteed),  affairs  took  a  contrary  course  in  Ger- 
many and  led  to  a  different  result.  The  momentous  turn- 
ing-point was  reached  when,  in  1077,  at  the  Convent  of 
Forchheim,  the  rebellious  princes,  in  connivance  with 
Home,  decreed  that  the  election  of  a  king  should  be  hence- 
forth governed  by  arbitrary  choice  regardless  of  hereditary 
claims. 

After  the  fall  of  the  house  of  Hohenstaufen  the  Ecclesias- 
tical Electors,  at  the  instigation  of  the  papacy,  found 
means  during  a  whole  century  to  prevent  the  transmission 
of  the  crown  from  father  to  son,  or  the  accession  even  of  a 
relative  of  the  deceased  monarch ;  a  policy  effectually  cal- 
culated to  weaken  and  ruin  both  kingdom  and  empire. 
For  henceforward  every  imperial  election  became  an  object 
of  traffic,  and  electors  bartered  their  votes  for  sums  of 
money  and  political  privileges.  At  length,  when  monarchy 
had  declined  to  a  shadow,  and  nothing  remained  of  the 
royal  German  or  of  the  imperial  power  but  empty  forms, 
the  succession  was  once  more  suffered  to  become  here- 
ditary, first  in  the  Luxemburg,  and  then  in  the  Habsburg 
family. 

The  development  of  the  German  principalities  took  a 
different  course.  The  offices  of  duke  and  count  having 
become  hereditary,  the  princely  houses  to  whom  they 
appertained  were  not  backward  in  strengthening  and  widen- 
ing their  own  power  by  appropriating  the  spoils  of  the 
empire  and  the  crown.  The  Golden  BulJ  provided  that  the 


i  IN   THE   HISTORY   OF  THE   WORLD  13 

electoral  principalities  should  not  be  subdivided.  But  the 
other  princes  set  themselves  in  general  to  secure  two 
objects :  to  provide  a  landed  inheritance  for  each  son,  and 
to  preserve  as  far  as  possible  the  independence  of  their 
possessions.  Every  trace  of  derived  official  power  had 
before  long  disappeared  from  amongst  the  hereditary  landed 
nobility;  who,  assuming  more  and  more  of  independent 
governing  power,  ventured  upon  yet  more  unscrupulous 
partitions.  It  was  during  that  period  of  the  eclipse  of  the 
empire,  after  1254,  that,  in  defiance  of  imperial  law,  the 
most  arbitrary  subdivisions  were  rapidly  accomplished. 
The  first  instance  took  place  in  1255.  In  1190  there  had 
been  twenty-two  reigning  princes  in  Germany ;  a  century 
later  the  number  had  been  doubled.  Thus  the  ancient  ties 
of  race  were  rent  asunder,  and  Germany  was  aimlessly  dis- 
membered, just  as  chance  or  family  convenience  suggested. 
A  host  of  dukedoms,  counties,  bishoprics,  and  abbeys, 
and  presently  also  of  free  towns  and  knightly  manors 
(Rittersitze),  sprang  into  independent  existence.  Besides 
this,  not  a  single  province  of  Germany  was  defined  by 
natural  geographical  and  political  demarcations,  nor  was 
the  population  animated  by  any  public  spirit  or  desire  for 
the  welfare  of  nation  or  empire.  The  nation  languished 
under  the  multitude  of  reigning  dynasties.  The  number 
of  sovereigns  finally  amounted  to  1,800,  viz.  314  imperial 
and  1,374  knightly  territories. 

The  deficiency  of  princely  houses  amongst  the  Slav 
nations  forms  a  striking  contrast  with  the  abundant 
dynasties  of  the  German  states.  In  every  Slav  country 
the  native  dynasties  have  either  died  out  or  been  deposed, 
and  their  place  has  been  taken  by  foreign  lines.  Even  in 
Eussia,  during  the  last  hundred  years,  the  sceptre  has  re- 
mained in  the  hands  of  a  German  family,  the  house  of 
Holstein-Gottorp.  Curiously  enough,  however,  in  North- 
western Germany  the  primitive  Slav  dynasty  still  survives, 
in  Mecklenburg.  An  ancestor  of  the  reigning  house,  the 
Obotritenfurst  Pribislaw,  having  received  baptism  and 


14  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF   DYNASTIES  i 

sworn  fealty  as  a  vassal  to  Germany,  was  reinstated  in  his 
dominions.  The  country  nevertheless  was  Germanised, 
and  the  Wend  language  soon  died  out. 

In  Bohemia  the  dynasty  of  Premysl,  having  occupied 
the  throne  during  several  centuries,  suddenly  rose  to  unex- 
pected splendour  under  Ottocar  II.,  to  whom  was  even 
made  the  offer  of  the  German  crown.  However,  upon  the 
death  of  his  son  Wenzel,  murdered  by  his  vassals  in  1306, 
the  old  race  became  extinct.  The  Luxemburg  dynasty  re- 
placed it  upon  the  throne  for  the  space  of  a  century,  and 
in  1526  the  Bohemians  elected  Ferdinand  of  Habsburg,  the 
husband  of  Anna  the  last  king's  daughter,  to  reign  over 
them.  Having  attested  thereby  their  right  of  election,  they 
again  asserted  it  in  1618  by  proclaiming  the  Elector  Pala- 
tine in  opposition  to  the  house  of  Habsburg.  This  led  to 
the  annihilation  of  religious  and  political  freedom  in 
Bohemia,  and  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  whereby  the  country  was  utterly  laid  waste. 

The  Bulgarians,  a  race  of  purely  Slavonic  origin,  whose 
liberation  and  elevation  into  a  new  state  governed  by  a 
German  prince  we  have  ourselves  lately  witnessed,  had  in 
1018  erected  a  kingdom,  which,  despite  the  hostile  pressure 
from  either  side,  of  Byzantium  and  Hungary,  maintained 
its  existence  until  1392,  when  it  succumbed  before  the 
advance  of  the  Ottoman  power. 

A  similar  fate  overtook  the  most  warlike  and  powerful 
amongst  the  Slavonic  races,  the  Servians.  The  dynasty  of 
the  Nemanias,  which  governed  Servia  for  212  years,  created 
a  powerful  kingdom,  which,  under  the  great  emperor 
Stephen  Duschan,  who  adopted  the  title  of  Czar,  comprised 
from  1347  to  1355  the  whole  Graeco-Illyrian  peninsula  with 
the  exception  of  the  Peloponnesus  and  Eoumelia.  The 
constitutional  code  of  which  Stephen  was  the  author  con- 
ceded to  his  people  privileges  unexampled  in  those  days. 
But  the  dynasty  came  to  an  end  with  his  son  Urosch  V., 
and,  after  a  century  of  internal  trouble  and  unsuccessful 
warfare,  Servia,  in  common  with  the  remaining  Slav  states, 


i  IN  THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   WORLD  15 

was  swallowed  up  in  the  darkness  and  misery  of  Turkish 
oppression. 

Fully  to  account,  however,  for  the  rapidity  with  which  the 
Slavonic  principalities  of  the  Balkan,  despite  the  defensive 
advantages  of  their  situation,  fell  a  prey  to  Turkish  oppres- 
sion, it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  most  effectual  help 
to  the  Turks,  and  the  most  deadly  foe  to  the  Slavs,  was 
found  in  Western  Christendom.  The  doom  of  the  Slavonic 
peoples  was  written  in  the  fact  that  they  belonged  to  the 
Greek  Church,  and  that  Latins  and  Turks  consequently 
joined  hands  in  their  destruction.  Any  one  who  reflects 
upon  this  will  not  fail  to  perceive  wherein  the  deeper  root 
of  Panslavism  lies  at  the  present  day,  and  the  magnitude 
of  the  danger  which  it  involves  for  Austria. 

The  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  witnessed  the  rise  of  a 
great  Slavonic  kingdom  under  Norman  rule.  Nevertheless, 
being  subject  to  the  partitions  customary  amongst  Slavonic 
peoples,  and  likewise  to  the  Slavonic  institution  of  the 
Senior  at,  the  Kingdom  of  Kussia  quickly  fell  to  pieces.  In 
1054  Jaroslav,  repeating  the  policy  of  the  first  Christian 
monarch  Wladimir,  divided  the  kingdom  amongst  his  five 
sons,  to  one  of  whom  he  gave  the  title  of  '  Grossfiirst '  or  chief 
of  all  the  royal  princes,  without,  however,  investing  him  with 
any  actual  power  over  the  rest.  The  endeavour  of  each 
subordinate  prince  to  wrest  this  dignity  for  himself,  was  the 
cause  of  constant  civil  wars.  Eussia  became  an  extensive 
but  powerless  confederation,  continually  on  the  decline, 
until  infinite  subdivisions  and  the  dissensions  of  her 
princes  led  to  her  easy  subjection  by  the  Monguls. 

Whilst  attempting  to  portray  the  leading  features  of 
dynasties,  and  to  note  the  conditions  under  which  they 
exist,  I  may  as  well  observe  that  of  all  the  great  royal 
houses,  that  which  best  understood  and  put  in  practice  a 
true  dynastic  policy  was  that  of  the  Capets  in  France. 
The  Salic  Law,  originally  enacted  merely  to  exclude 
daughters  from  inheriting  private  property,  came  after  a 


16  THE    SIGNIFICANCE    OF   DYNASTIES  i 

time  to  be  applied  to  the  crown,  and  it  was  held  that  its 
provisions  excluded  females  from  the  succession  to  the 
throne.  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  sex  has  taken 
ample  vengeance  for  the  slight  put  upon  it,  for  in  no 
European  country  has  female  rule,  open  or  secret,  been  so 
long  maintained  or  so  powerfully  felt  as  in  France.  During 
the  first  centuries  of  consolidation  of  the  French  Kingdom 
and  dynasty,  the  effect  of  the  Salic  Law  was  doubly 
beneficial.  Not  only  did  it  protect  the  kingdom  from 
dismemberment  and  from  the  introduction  of  foreign 
dynasties ;  it  enabled  the  kings  through  the  law  of  settle- 
ments to  establish  their  brothers  or  sons  as  counts  or 
dukes  over  newly  acquired  provinces,  and  by  such  means 
to  ensure  an  heir  to  the  throne  through  some  collateral 
branch  of  the  dynasty  in  the  event  of  failure  in  the 
direct  line.  The  German  Emperor  Otto  the  Great  had 
sagaciously  endeavoured  to  strengthen  his  house  by  be- 
stowing vacant  dukedoms  upon  his  sons  and  sons-in- 
law.  But  in  this  case  such  a  policy  only  resulted  in  the 
rebellion  of  sons  and  relatives  against  the  head  of  the 
family.  Amongst  the  French  princes  the  welfare  and 
unity  of  the  kingdom  was  of  higher  interest.  The  attempt, 
at  a  later  time,  of  Philip  II.,  in  defiance  of  Salic  Law,  to 
impose  a  king  upon  France  whose  claim  to  the  succession 
was  derived  through  the  female  line,  was  frustrated. 
Germans  assuredly  have  not  forgotten  the  fearful  devastation 
by  fire  and  sword  of  the  Palatinate  in  1689,  the  pretext  for 
which  was  the  claim  to  the  inheritance  of  German  territory 
raised,  contrary  to  all  right,  by  a  French  prince  who  had 
married  the  daughter  of  the  Elector  Palatine. 

In  the  Pyrenean  peninsula,  where  female  succession 
was  valid,  history  took  a  different  course.  By  the  marriage, 
in  1234,  of  the  heiress  Blanca  to  Thibaut  Count  of  Cham- 
pagne, the  Kingdom  of  Navarre  passed  for  the  first  time 
into  the  hands  of  a  French  dynasty,  and  was  afterwards 
united  to  France  by  the  marriage  of  Philippe  le  Bel  with 
Joanna.  It  again  became  independent  under  a  French 


i  IN   THE   HISTOKY   OF   THE    WORLD  17 

dynasty  founded  by  Philip  Count  of  Evreux,  who  married 
Joanna  II. ;  and  subsequently,  after  a  brief  connection 
with  Aragon,  was  once  more  subjected  to  the  rule  of  French 
princes  in  the  persons  of  the  Counts  of  Foix  and  the  Lords 
of  Albret,  until  it  was  forcibly  annexed  by  Ferdinand  King 
of  Aragon  to  his  dominions. 

Spain  received  a  Burgundian  dynasty  in  the  twelfth 
century,  through  the  marriage  of  Queen  Urraca  of  Castille 
with  Eaymond  of  Burgundy;  a  German  dynasty  in  the 
sixteenth  century  by  the  accession  of  the  son  of  the  Emperor 
Maximilian  to  the  throne ;  and  a  Bourbon  dynasty  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  Despite  the  exclusive  tendencies 
of  Spain,  the  French  princes  in  the  peninsula  kept  up 
the  intercourse  between  the  more  highly  civilised  sister- 
country  and  the  land  of  their  adoption.  They  opened  the 
door  to  intellectual  influences,  and  it  was  thus  made  easier 
to  the  French  Cluniac  monks  to  inspire  fresh  tendencies 
into  the  Spanish  Church,  and  to  lay  the  foundation  of 
those  principles  which  actuated  the  behaviour  of  Spain  in 
ecclesiastical  matters  from  the  time  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  and  which  continued  to  guide  the  policy  of  Philip 
II.  and  his  successors. 

Eeverting  to  the  dynastic  policy  of  the  Capets,  we  find 
that  in  the  year  1270  the  royal  house  of  France  was  only 
indirectly  in  possession  of  the  greater  part  of  modern 
France,  that  is  to  say,  through  the  eight  dynasties  which 
were  offshoots  from  it.  The  provinces  apportioned  by  set- 
tlement to  these  families  gradually  reverted  to  the  crown. 
Some  collateral  branches  died  out.  The  parent  stem  itself 
was  four  times  on  the  point  of  extinction,  and  each  time 
was  revived  through  the  indirect  lines.  Upon  the  death  of 
Henry  III.  not  only  did  the  main  line  of  the  Capets  disap- 
pear with  the  Yalois  branch,  but  by  that  time  more  than 
sixteen  of  the  princely  lines  derived  from  it  had  come  to  an 
end.  Meanwhile,  within  the  space  of  700  years  the 
monarchs  of  the  house  of  Capet  had  completed  the  task  of 
extending  the  Kingdom  of  France  up  to  its  natural  terri- 


18  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF   DYNASTIES  i 

torial  limits.  Once  indeed  a  serious  deviation  from  the 
policy  of  consolidation  took  place,  when  King  John  erected 
into  principalities,  for  three  of  his  sons,  provinces  which 
had  previously  been  united  to  the  crown.  This  retrograde 
step  was  punished  by  the  rise  of  the  Burgundian  and 
Armagnac  factions,  which  led  to  a  civil  war,  threatening 
the  very  existence  of  the  French  Kingdom. 

Matrimonial  alliances  play  an  important  part  in  dynas- 
tic policy. 

The  fortune  of  the  Habsburg  family  in  marriage  is 
proverbial.  Yet  to  Europe  at  large  these  marriages  were  a 
source  of  trouble,  since  twice — in  the  sixteenth  and  again 
in  the  eighteenth  century — the  alliances  formed  with  dis- 
tant countries  possessing  no  natural  ties  of  interest,  and 
the  quarrels  consequent  upon  disputed  claims  of  inheritance, 
plunged  Europe  into  protracted  wars,  in  which  Italy, 
Belgium,  Spain,  and  Germany  were  visited  with  all  the 
horrors  of  desolation. 

France  fared  better  with  the  marriages  of  her  kings. 
Her  matrimonial  policy  had  undoubtedly  led  the  nation 
into  the  Hundred  Years'  War  with  England,  and  into  fruit- 
less conflicts  with  Italy ;  yet  it  was  nevertheless  through 
marriage  that  Philippe  Auguste  acquired  Artois  ;  Philippe 
le  Bel,  Champagne  and  Brie  ;  Louis  XII. ,  Brittany  ;  and 
Louis  XV.,  Lorraine.  Queens  thus  brought  with  them  as 
dowries  acquisitions  which  must  otherwise  have  been  striven 
for  upon  the  field  of  battle.  Spain  also  was  indebted  for 
her  union  and  political  greatness  to  the  marriage  of  Ferdi- 
nand of  Aragon  with  Isabella  of  Castille. 

Placed  in  a  most  difficult  situation,  the  Dukes  of  Savoy 
found  it  greatly  to  their  advantage  to  ally  themselves  by  a 
double  marriage  with  the  most  powerful  monarchical  houses 
of  Europe.  The  house  of  Nassau-Dillenburg-Orange  long- 
flourished  under  a  singularly  favourable  star,  almost  every 
marriage  bringing  with  it  an  increase  of  territory  and  popu- 
lation. 

But  marriages  have  not  infrequently  produced  inomen- 


i  IN   THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   WORLD  19 

tous  and  mischievous  consequences  to  royal  races.  The 
union  of  near  relatives,  frequent  inter-marriage  between 
two  families,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Habsburgs,  between 
two  branches  of  the  same  family,  are  causes  which  have 
been  mainly  accountable  for  the  decay  and  extinction  of 
dynasties.  To  the  proverb  of  the  middle  ages — aut  non 
rives t  aut  non  dives,  aut  non  proles — that  is  to  say,  to  the 
early  death,  or  poverty,  or  sterility  which  are  consequent 
upon  such  marriages,  another  evil  result  may  be  added — 
mental  weakness  and  disorder.  That  to  the  people,  to 
whom  their  princes  should  at  any  rate  be  patterns,  should 
be  set  an  example  of  marriage  between  nephew  and  aunt  or 
uncle  and  niece,  is  a  dark  stain  in  the  history  of  Christian 
nations.  The  German  Habsburgs  did  not  numerically  fail 
in  offspring.  The  Emperor  Maximilian  had  sixteen  chil- 
dren by  his  cousin  Maria,  only  daughter  of  Charles  V., 
amongst  whom  were  the  Emperors  Eudolph  and  Matthias ; 
Maximilian  the  Grand  Master  of  the  Teutonic  order  and 
elective  King  of  Poland ;  and  Albert  the  Kegent  of  Belgium. 
None  of  these  left  his  inheritance  to  his  son.  The  mar- 
riage of  Charles  of  Styria  with  Maria  of  Bavaria  was  as 
fruitful  as  that  of  his  father  Ferdinand  I,  who  had  fifteen 
children;  Ferdinand  II,  had  seven;  Ferdinand  II J., 
eleven  ;  Leopold  I.  by  three  wives  had  sixteen  sons  and 
daughters,  yet  his  son  the  Emperor  Charles  VI.  was  the 
last  of  the  race  ;  for  in  him  the  house  of  Habsburg  came 
to  an  end,  forty  years  after  the  extinction  of  the  Spanish 
branch. 

Effectual  means  have  been  devised  to  reduce  princes 
into  a  state  of  acquiescence  with  idleness  and  incapacity  ; 
viz.  the  perpetual  ceremonial  and  wearisome  etiquette 
which  like  a  net  surrounds  and  trammels  their  daily  life. 
The  result  attained  has  been  similar  to  that  produced 
by  education  in  an  Eastern  hareern  amongst  women, 
eunuchs,  and  slaves.  In  Spain  especially,  but  also  in 
Vienna,  the  monotony  of  royal  life  under  the  unvarying 

c  2 


20  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  DYNASTIES  i 

restraint  of  court  etiquette  with  its  rigid  mechanism,  had 
an  irresistible  influence  upon  the  minds  of  the  princes  fatal 
to  all  thought.  Saint- Simon,  who  had  known  Philip  V., 
the  first  Bourbon  to  ascend  the  Spanish  throne,  as  a  young 
and  lively  prince  at  the  court  of  France,  was  astonished, 
upon  a  visit  to  Madrid,  at  the  change  which  had  come  over 
the  young  monarch,  whom  he  found  just  as  mechanical, 
silent,  melancholy,  and  hypochondriacal  as  his  predecessors 
of  the  house  of  Habsburg. 

The  house  of  Habsburg  had  mentally  and  physically 
deteriorated  in  Spain  with  each  succeeding  generation. 
The  portraits  of  the  kings  from  Charles  I.  (V.)  to  Charles  II. 
convey  the  impression  of  the  progressive  degradation  of  the 
race.  Philip  II.  held  the  reins  of  government  in  his  own 
hands  ;  his  son  and  his  grandson,  Philip  III.  and  Philip  IV., 
resigned  them  into  the  hands  of  their  ministers,  and  their 
successor  Charles  II.,  a  pitiable  weakling,  stunted  in  mind 
and  body,  was  unable  to  continue  the  line.  To  his  father 
Philip  IV.,  besides  several  legitimate  children,  thirty-two 
bastards  had  been  born.  We  find  the  same  in  the  Stuart 
king,  Charles  II.  of  England,  who  had  twelve  illegitimate, 
but  no  legitimate  children  ;  Louis  XIV.,  again,  saw  his 
sons,  four  daughters,  grandson,  and  great-grandson  precede 
him  to  the  grave;  one  great-grandson  alone,  Louis  XV., 
upon  whom  the  destinies  of  France  hung,  survived  him. 
His  physician  is  said  to  have  pointed  out  to  him  the 
cause :  the  children  born  of  merely  conventional  mar- 
riages to  worn-out  voluptuaries  are  wanting  in  vital  power, 
impoverished  in  blood,  and  as  a  rule  short-lived.  Many 
a  princely  race  can  show  a  similar  result  from  a  similar 
cause. 

Old  dynasties,  like  nations,  have  their  source  of  vitality 
in  the  past,  springing  out  of  the  remembrance  of  one  or 
more  famous  ancestors,  who  for  their  great  deeds — as 
national  benefactors,  or  as  wise  and  noble  princes,  or,  acting 
in  accordance  with  the  popular  sentiment,  as  conquerors 
who  have  added  to  the  dominions  of  their  country  —survive 


i  IX  THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   WOULD  21 

in  the  grateful  remembrance  of  the  people.  The  image  of 
the  pious  and  just,  tender  yet  strong  Louis  IX.,  shining 
through  the  troubled  ages  like  a  beneficent  sunbeam, 
fostered  the  warmth  of  national  loyalty  towards  the  dynasty 
to  which  he  belonged  ;  and  his  name  rather  than  any  other 
is  still  invoked  in  any  attempt  to  stir  up  sympathy  with 
the  old  monarchy  in  the  hearts  of  Frenchmen — an  attempt 
useless  enough  now,  since  loyalty  towards  a  dynasty  is  a 
sentiment  that  has  been  torn  up  by  the  very  roots  from  the 
minds  of  the  masses  in  France.  The  name  of  Bourbon 
has  become  associated  in  the  popular  rnind  with  indistinct 
but  deeply  execrated  memories  of  the  ancien  regime  as  the 
personification  of  arbitrary  oppression  and  extortion.  The 
fame  of  the  earlier  Louis  has  been  obscured  by  the  mis- 
deeds of  the  XlVth  and  XVth  representatives  of  the 
name.  Such  an  entire  revolution  in  the  sentiments  of 
a  great  people  is  one  of  the  most  striking  phenomena  of 
history.  During  a  long  period  the  French  were  not  only 
loyal  subjects,  but  enthusiastic  worshippers  of  their  king. 
In  1272  the  Venetian  ambassador  remarked :  *  French- 
men neither  can  nor  will  exist  out  of  their  own  country, 
for  they  know  no  other  god  but  their  king ;  the  populace 
fails  down  to  worship  him  upon  bended  knee  whenever  he 
passes.' 

Just  as  the  memory  of  the  saintly  Louis  retained  its 
glow  in  France,  so  did  that  of  Alfred  the  Great  in  England, 
and  to  an  even  greater  degree  that  of  Edward  the  Confessor. 
Towards  the  latter,  indeed,  long  after  his  death,  and  when 
romance  had  thrown  an  additional  halo  around  him,  the 
people  were  wont  to  look  back  with  yearning  affection, 
heightened  by  contrast  with  the  hatred  which  they  bore  to 
the  yoke  of  their  Norman  and  Angevin  masters.  Such 
posthumous  popularity  has  not  attended  any  later  sove- 
reign, although  Elizabeth,  both  during  her  life  and  after 
death,  was  a  popular  favourite.  The  people  of  England, 
with  strong  loyalist  sentiments,  are  yet  apt  to  call  their 
monarchs  to  a  strict  account. 


22  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  DYNASTIES  i 

Amongst  the  gloomy  pictures  of  the  past,  I  reckon  those 
dynasties  which  slowly  or  swiftly  have  compassed  their  own 
destruction.  In  a  history  of  dynasties  a  section  should  be 
reserved  for  examples  of  this  kind  of  suicide.  The  cata- 
strophe may  be  brought  about  in  three  ways.  First,  by 
the  murder  of  relatives  so  that  the  race  perishes  for  want 
of  an  offshoot ;  an  instance  of  this  was  the  annihilation 
of  the  great  Isaurian  race  of  emperors  by  the  Empress 
Irene,  the  murderess  of  her  own  son.  Oriental  history, 
both  ancient  and  Mohammedan,  is  rife  with  similar 
occurrences. 

Secondly,  ruling  houses  have  courted  ruin  by  their 
vices,  by  unbridled  lust  and  manifold  crimes.  Upon  the 
death  of  Henry  II.  in  1559,  the  hopes  of  the  house  of 
Valois  rested  upon  the  four  sons  of  that  monarch,  of  whom 
three,  Francis  II.,  Charles  IX.,  and  Henry  III.,  ascended 
the  throne  in  turn.  None  of  these  left  a  legitimate  son. 
Two  of  them  shed  streams  of  French  blood  in  cowardly 
assassinations,  and  upon  the  death  of  Henry,  a  vicious 
king,  who  himself  fell  a  victim  to  the  hand  of  an  assassin, 
the  family  became  extinct. 

There  is  a  third  way  by  which  a  ruling  house  achieves 
self-destruction.  The  Bourbons,  especially  Louis  XIV. 
and  XV.,  have  trodden  it.  It  was  they  who  prepared  the 
way  for  the  general  catastrophe  of  the  Eevolution  and  the 
downfall  of  their  own  dynasty — made  them,  in  fact  inevi- 
table. Constant  usurpations  in  favour  of  unlimited 
despotism ;  the  undermining  and  dissolution  of  all  protec- 
tive rights  and  institutions  for  the  people  ;  encroachment 
by  the  cabinet  upon  the  administration  of  justice,  coupled 
with  banishment  of  refractory  judges;  arbitrary  imprison- 
ment through  innumerable  Uttres-de^cachet ;  sale  of  state 
and  court  offices,  and  consequent  inability  of  government  to 
control  its  functionaries ;  estrangement  between  classes 
through  the  hateful  privileges  of  some,  and  the  irreconcil- 
able interests  of  others  ;  above  all,  oppression  and  extortion 
practised  against  the  mass  of  the  people,  i.e.  the  peasantry, 


i  IN  THE   HISTORY  OF  THE   WORLD  23 

to  an  extent  almost  inconceivable  in  our  day :  this  was  the 
inheritance  which  these  three  predecessors  left  to  the  well- 
meaning  but  ill-starred  Louis  XVI.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  most  highly-gifted  monarch,  supported  by  the  most  able 
statesmen,  could  have  carried  out  a  reformation  amid 
disorders  so  profound,  or  have  arrested  the  impending 
disaster.  The  weak,  short-sighted  Louis  XVI.  was  by  no 
means  fitted  for  the  giant  task  ;  it  swept  him  into  the 
abyss. 

Ernst  Moritz  Arndt,  a  man  whose  name  will  remain 
ever  dear  to  Germans,  expressed  in  1844  great  anxiety 
at  the  fact  that  Germany  was  called  upon  to  provide 
dynasties  and  princes  for  all  Europe.  '  Germany,'  he  said, 
'  has  become  a  nursery  for  princes.  Out  of  this  eagle's 
nest  have  flown  sovereigns  to  fill  the  English,  Eussian,  and 
Scandinavian  thrones,  and  empresses  and  queens  are  sought 
for  in  it.  A  melancholy  prospect  is  hence  opened  of  dis- 
puted claims  and  contested  rights,  which  may  possibly  in 
the  future  divide  and  sap  the  strength  of  the  fatherland.' 
Arndt  dwelt  much  upon  the  importance  of  a  general 
German  law,  a  Pragmatic  Sanction,  being  passed,  which 
should  make  it  impossible  for  a  German  state  to  accept  any 
foreign  prince,  or  any  German  prince  occupying  a  foreign 
throne,  as  its  leader.  Had  he  lived  to  witness  the  events 
of  1871,  he  would  have  learnt  to  regard  the  future  with 
greater  confidence.  The  German  federal  union,  the 
empire,  is,  and,  let  us  hope,  will  remain,  firmly  and 
strongly  cemented.  The  Salic  Law  remains  in  force,  and  a 
disruption  of  the  provinces  of  Germany  could  only  take 
place  as  the  result  of  disastrous  wars.  German  princes 
will  yet  again  and  again  be  summoned  to  fill  foreign 
thrones.  There  is  always  a  greater  demand  in  the  world 
for  princes  and  dynasties  than  for  republics  and  dema- 
gogues. We  have  given  a  Coburg  prince  to  Portugal  and 
a  Hohenzollern  prince  to  Eoumania,  and  let  us  hope  for 
the  establishment  of  their  power,  and  increased  prosperity 
to  their  adopted  countries. 


24  THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  DYNASTIES  i 

Les  dynasties  s'en  vont !  was  an  exclamation  made  fifty 
years  ago,  and  one  which  is  often  repeated  at  the  present 
day  in  France  and  throughout  Latin  Europe.  We  have 
seen  the  fall  of  many  a  royal  house.  Yet  the  experience 
of  the  last  few  decades  would  rather  prompt  us  to  exclaim : 
New  dynasties  arise  !  The  very  fact  that  the  present  and 
the  immediate  future  are  charged  with  the  solution  of  the 
greatest  and  weightiest  social  problems,  makes  monarchs 
indispensable.  The  testimony  of  history  assures  us  that 
the  solution  of  such  questions,  the  reform  of  institutions, 
and  the  removal  of  traditional  abuses,  are  more  easily 
and  safely  accomplished  under  a  monarchy  than  under  a 
republic.  When  the  corruption  of  the  Eoman  Common- 
wealth reached  the  lowest  point,  all  intelligent  judges 
admitted  the  incapacity  of  the  republic  for  self-reform,  and 
the  inevitable  necessity  for  the  monarchy.  So  was  it  with 
the  Polish  Republic,  and  so,  again,  with  the  French  Re- 
public under  the  Directory.  Had  the  United  States  of 
North  America  been  under  a  monarchical  head  in  1862, 
rather  than  under  a  president  erected  for  a  few  years,  it 
would  have  been  possible  to  conduct  the  problem  of  slavery, 
upon  which  the  Union  had  split,  to  a  peaceful  solution,  and 
to  have  avoided  a  bloody  civil  war,  of  which  the  wounds 
are  still  far  from  being  healed,  and  which  even  yet  threatens 
to  give  rise  to  fresh  complications  and  intolerable 
grievances. 

I  have  heard  it  said  by  Americans,  with  regard  to  the 
presidential  election  and  the  concomitant  changes  in  all  the 
public  offices,  that  their  national  constitution  is  productive 
of  evils  for  remedying  which  no  one  can  suggest  method  or 
means. 

There  is  a  German  play  in  which  an  imperious  woman 
says  to  the  man  of  her  choice  : 

O  lass  mich  knien,  vor  dir  im  Staube  liegen, 
Mich  demuthsvoll  zu  deinen  Fiissen  schmiegen, 


i  IN   THE   HISTORY   OF  THE   WORLD  25 

Und  schwelgen  in  der  ungewohnten  Lust, 
Die  Leben  geusst  in  meine  todte  Brust, 
Dass  einen  Herrn  ich  iiber  mich  erkenne, 
Und  doch  nicht  wider  ihn  in  Hass  entbrenne.2 

To  the  German  the  sovereign  of  the  land  is  the  father 
of  his  people,  and  as  such  the  object  of  reverence  and  love, 
to  whom  is  willingly  attributed  the  will  and  the  power  to 
remove  every  grievance  if  once  it  be  brought  to  his  know- 
ledge, and  his  mind  be  not  poisoned  by  the  suggestions  of 
evil  counsellors.  Even  the  manifest  faults  and  errors  of 
the  monarch  are  often  leniently  overlooked  by  the  people  if 
they  concern  only  his  personal  life.  And  how  trustfully 
and  with  what  hopes  and  homage  are  these  people  wont  to 
welcome  a  new  sovereign  !  The  dynastic  sentiment  is  too 
deeply  rooted  in  the  nature  and  history  of  mankind  ever  to 
become  entirely  obliterated.  lieges  erunt  in  orbe  ultimi.'3 

2  Oh,  let  me  kneel,  in  dust  before  thee  lie, 
Whilst  henceforth  humbly  at  thy  feet  I  sigh, 
Revelling  in  happiness  before  unguessed, 
Which  fills  with  life  renewed  my  deadened  breast. 
Since  now  a  master's  will  my  heart  discerns 
And  yet  no  flame  of  hate  against  him  burns. 

3  Adapted  from  the  well-known  motto  :  A.  E.  I.  0.  U.,  Austria  erit  in 
orbe  ultima. 


26  THE   HOUSE   OF   WITTELSBACH 


II 

THE  HOUSE   OF   WITTELSBACH  AND  ITS 
PLACE  IN  GERMAN  HISTORY1 

VERY  ancient  is  the  race  which,  already  famous  900  years 
ago,  rose  after  the  year  1180  to  fresh  importance  upon 
Bavarian  soil.  Otto,  hitherto  Count  Palatine  of  Wittels- 
bach,  was  a  descendant  of  that  Duke  Luitpold  who  fell  in 
combat  with  the  Hungarians,  and  whose  sons  and  grand- 
sons had  already  worn  the  ducal  cap  of  Bavaria.  No 
princely  race  in  Europe  is  of  such  ancient  extraction ;  the 
Capets,  the  Guelphs,  the  Ascanians,  the  Hohenzollerns,  the 
Habsburgs— all  came  later  upon  the  world's  theatre. 

The  gift  which  the  Emperor  Frederick  bestowed  upon 
the  Count  of  Wittelsbach  in  return  for  long  and  devoted 
services,  was  not  indeed  one  of  the  great  hereditary  duke- 
doms, which,  governed  by  an  imperial  representative  vested 
with  full  powers,  only  too  often  had  disturbed  or  shattered 
the  peace  of  Germany  by  their  rebellion. 

With  the  fall  of  Henry  the  Lion  these  dukedoms  were 
broken  up,  and  were  presently  replaced  by  a  number  of 
smaller  territorial  lordships.  Even  Otto  received  but  a 
portion  of  the  former  dukedom ;  Tyrol,  Styria,  and 
Austria  were  severed  from  it ;  and  meanwhile  the  bishops 
had  risen  to  an  equality  with  the  secular  princes  and  were 
possessed  of  the  same  rights  of  sovereignty.  Bavaria  was 
as  yet  destitute  of  towns  :  Landshut  and  Munich  first  rose 

1  Lecture  delivered  at  the  Festival  of  the  Wittelsbach  Jubilee  upon  the 
special  meeting  of  the  K.  B.  Academy,  July  28,  1880,  in  the  great  hall  of 
the  University  at  Munich,  and  published  by  the  Academy  and  by  C.  H. 
Beck. 


ii  AND   ITS   PLACE   IN   GERMAN  HISTORY  27 

into  consideration  in  the  course  of  the  13th  century ; 
Eatisbon,  already  a  flourishing  town,  was  regarded  as  the 
capital  and  residence  of  the  Dukes  of  Bavaria,  and  the  duke 
even  pretended  to  the  title  of  Burggraf.  Beautifully 
situated  upon  the  Danube,  Eatisbon  would  have  been 
peculiarly  fitted  to  form  the  central  point  of  an  aspiring 
state  and  the  residence  of  its  princes,  and  would  have 
afforded  it  additional  strength  and  unity ;  but  it  was  the 
seat  of  a  bishopric,  and  in  those  days  princes  and  bishops 
in  Germany  were  unable  to  exist  side  by  side.  There  was 
as  little  room  for  prince  and  bishop  in  one  town  as  for 
emperor  and  pope  in  one  kingdom. 

Thus  from  the  outset  it  was  incumbent  upon  the  dukes, 
and  as  time  went  on  became  still  more  so,  to  apply  them- 
selves to  consolidating  the  influence  of  their  house. 

It  was  a  fortunate  circumstance  that  the  powerful  counts 
of  the  land  soon  died  out.  As  many  as  thirty  of  them  dis- 
appeared within  300  years.  The  crime  committed  by  the 
Count  Palatine,  a  nephew  and  namesake  of  Otto's,  in  the 
murder  of  King  Philip  also  tended  to  increase  the  con- 
sideration of  the  Wittelsbachs,  since  the  possessions  of  the 
outlawed  murderer  fell  to  his  cousin,  who  by  this  time  had 
become  duke.  A  further  accession  of  dignity  and  power 
awaited  the  family  in  1214  in  the  acquisition  of  the  Palati- 
nate of  the  Ehine. 

Duke  Ludwig  was  now  the  most  powerful  prince  of 
Southern  Germany.  His  ambition  seems  to  have  prompted 
him  to  a  further  step  when,  unlike  his  father,  he  broke 
faith  with  Frederick  II.  and  his  son  Henry  VI.,  and  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  hostile  forces  which  the  pope 
had  incited  against  the  Hohenstaufens.  But  the  weapon 
of  the  assassin  upon  the  bridge  of  Kelheim  cut  short  his 
career.  His  son  Otto  the  Illustrious,  remaining  on  the 
contrary  true  to  the  imperial  house,  died  excommunicate, 
and  his  dominions  were  placed  for  several  years  under  an 
interdict. 

The  house  of  Wittelsbach  was  nevertheless  in  a  fair  way 


28     .  THE   HOUSE   OF   WITTELSJ3ACH  n 

towards  becoming  the  most  powerful  house  in  Germany. 
It  was  already  without  a  rival  in  the  south.  Upon  the 
death  of  Otto  a  partition  of  the  inheritance  took  place. 
This  partition  became  to  the  family  an  hereditary  evil,  a 
fatal  source  of  quarrel  and  of  secret  or  open  enmity.  So 
long  as  the  system  of  partition  was  persevered  in—  and  as 
many  as  twenty  lines  were  at  last  in  existence — the  wounds 
which  the  house  inflicted  upon  itself  were  deeper  and  more 
serious  in  their  effects  than  any  which  could  have  been 
dealt  by  an  external  foe. 

The  permanent  acquisition  of  the  Germ  an  Kingdom  arid 
Empire  would,  indeed,  during  that  time,  from  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  to  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
have  been  unattainable  even  for  the  united  house ;  for  the 
powers  which  had  overthrown  the  Hohenstaufens,  and  had 
so  utterly  and  entirely  reduced  the  empire  to  subjection, 
would  no  longer  permit  any  hereditary  succession,  nor  allow 
a  strong  prince  to  ascend  the  throne.  The  emperors  elected 
were  mere  phantoms,  some  of  them  foreigners  who  by 
means  of  lavish  expenditure  appropriated  the  glitter  of  the 
German  crown,  leaving  the  actual  power  in  the  hands  of  the 
electoral  princes.  The  empire  fell  from  predominance  to 
impotence — looked  upon  with  contempt  from  without ;  a 
prey  to  confusion  and  anarchy  within. 

In  this  dark  and  dreadful  period  of  interregnum,  when 
all  men  waited  for  the  final  dissolution  of  the  empire, 
nothing  appears  concerning  the  Wittelsbach  family.  We 
seek  in  vain  for  any  trace  of  influence  exercised  by  the 
family  upon  the  affairs  of  Germany  in  proportion  with  the 
position  which  it  occupied. 

It  was  strong  in  the  Ehineland ;  stronger  still  in  the 
south,  where  lay  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  empire.  Just 
at  the  critical  time,  besides,  the  Wittelsbachs  had  command 
of  two  electoral  votes,  by  which  they  might  more  than  once 
have  turned  the  scale.  But  they  did  nothing  of  the  kind  ; 
the  imperial  election  was  decided  principally  by  the  votes 
of  the  ecclesiastical  electors,  who  were  guided  by  aims  pre- 


AND   ITS   PLACE   IN   GERMAN    HISTORY  29 

scribed  to  them  by  Rome.  The  secular  princes,  numbering 
at  first  thirteen,  and  afterwards  thirty-eight,  against  ninety- 
two  ecclesiastical  princes,  had  enough  to  do  in  consolidating 
and  regulating  their  but  lately  acquired  territorial  sove- 
reignty. 

The  Wittelsbachs,  in  common  with  all  the  other  princes 
of  the  time,  had  come  to  look  upon  what  had  been  origin- 
ally ex  officio  authority,  as  an  hereditary  family  possession ; 
and  whilst  one  of  them,  the  Count  Palatine  of  the  Rhine, 
was  engaged  in  the  task  of  welding  together  and  organising 
his  scattered  provinces,  the  other,  Duke  Henry,  was  taken 
up  with  repelling  the  aggressiveness  of  his  powerful  neigh- 
bour Ottocar,  King  of  Bohemia. 

Finally  in  1273  Rudolf,  the  first  of  the  Habsburgs, 
ascended  the  long-unoccupied  throne.  They  elected  him, 
an  insignificant  count,  rather  than  Ottocar  or  one  of  the 
Wittelsbachs,  with  the  expectation  that  he  would  confirm 
Rome  and  the  princes  in  possession  of  all  the  rights  and 
territories  of  which  they  had  despoiled  the  empire  during 
the  last  thirty  years  ;  which  accordingly  he  did.  A  restorer 
of  the  empire,  as  he  has  been  called,  he  certainly  was  not, 
but  he  created  a  certain  amount  of  order  in  the  German 
provinces  and  adhered  so  far  as  lay  in  his  power  to  the 
peaceful  policy  which  he  had  announced.  He  won  over  the 
Bavarian  princes  by  bestowing  his  daughters  upon  them 
in  marriage.  Louis  remained  faithful  and  rendered  him 
good  service ;  but  the  turbulent  Henry,  who  had  already 
made  war  upon  his  brother  for  the  possession  of  the  electoral 
vote,  deserted  him,  and  for  this  Bavaria  was  punished 
by  the  loss  of  the  vote,  and  of  the  territory  above  the 
Enns. 

After  Rudolf's  death  the  electoral  oligarchy  again  set 
up  in  turn  monarchs  of  different  houses,  Nassau,  Habs- 
burg,  and  Luxemburg,  with  the  result  that  claims  to  the 
succession  were  now  raised  by  the  three  families  of  Habs- 
burg,  Luxemburg,  and  Wittelsbach.  The  half-French 
Count  of  Luxemburg,  whose  family  until  recently  had  been 


30  THE   HOUSE   OF   WITTELSBACH  n 

but  insignificant  princes,  had  now,  thanks  to  his  father 
Henry  VII.,  become  King  of  Bohemia.  The  Habsburgs 
possessed  Austria.  Ludwig  the  Bavarian  owed  his  success 
to  his  being  the  weakest  and  the  least  to  be  feared ;  and 
to  the  fact,  besides,  that  he  was  neither  the  son  nor  the 
descendant  of  a  former  emperor. 

For  three-and-thirty  years  did  Ludwig  rule  as  king 
and  emperor  in  Germany  and  Italy.  Of  his  predecessors, 
three  only,  Otto  I.  and  the  two  Fredericks,  had  reigned 
as  long.  He  found  himself,  as  time  went  on,  more  and 
more  surrounded  by  insuperable  obstacles  and  inveterate 
hostility.  Innumerable  foes  from  within  and  from  without 
opposed  him,  sometimes  openly,  sometimes  in  secret.  The 
house  of  Luxemburg,  and  the  princes  who  had  favoured 
his  election  that  he  might  become  their  tool,  did  not 
hesitate  to  betray  him  whenever  it  suited  their  convenience. 
Wearied  and  despondent,  he  was  more  than  once  tempted 
to  abdicate.  His  life  was  passed  in  warfare  and  in  travel- 
ling from  place  to  place.  For  the  empire  had  neither 
capital  nor  royal  residence,  nor  was  there  even  a  permanent 
place  of  safety  for  the  archives,  whilst  the  revenues  had 
been  so  reduced  by  each  imperial  election  that  they  amounted 
to  but  an  insignificant  sum. 

But  Ludwig's  most  dangerous  and  enterprising  foe  was 
in  Paris.  The  now  powerful  royal  house  of  France  had, 
since  the  beginning  of  the  century,  been  intent,  now  upon 
winning  the  German  crown  for  a  French  prince,  now  upon 
wresting  the  empire  if  not  the  German  Kingdom  for  France ; 
and,  in  the  distracted  state  of  affairs,  was  at  the  same  time 
ever  on  the  watch  to  lay  hands  upon  some  convenient 
portion  of  the  imperial  territories.  The  papal  court,  trans- 
ferred to  France,  had  become  French  both  in  the  person 
of  the  pope  and  in  its  policy ;  and,  with  this  mighty  lever 
in  his  grasp,  it  was  the  object  of  the  French  King  to  acquire 
the  sovereignty  in  Italy  for  the  house  of  Anjou,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  compass  the  end  in  view  with  regard  to 
Germany.  A  far-reaching  scheme  for  the  extension  of 


AND    ITS    PLACE   IN    GERMAN   HISTORY  31 

Latin  influences  at  the  cost  of  the  German  nation  had 
heen  thus  set  on  foot. 

Ludwig  must  have  been  unaware  of  the  toils  that  sur- 
rounded him  when,  at  a  summons  from  the  Ghibelline 
party,  undeterred  by  the  misfortunes  which  had  there 
befallen  his  predecessor  Henry  VII.,  he  undertook  the 
journey  to  Italy.  Once  more,  and  now  for  the  last  time, 
a  struggle  was  to  be  made  to  restore  the  imperial  power 
in  Italy.  On  both  sides  of  the  Alps  this  effort  was  expected 
and  demanded  of  Ludwig.  Only  by  undertaking  the 
gigantic  enterprise  could  he  hope  to  retain  his  hold  upon 
Germany.  In  Italy,  during  the  time  of  the  interregnum, 
and  afterwards  through  Eudolf's  action,  the  greater  part 
of  the  rights  and  posaessions  of  the  empire  in  Italy  had 
been  already  lost,  i.e.  stolen,  abdicated,  or  sold.  Although 
sadly  deficient  in  arms  and  means,  it  was  now  neverthe- 
less expected  that  he  should  take  up  the  contest  against 
the  formidable  opponents  leagued  against  him— the  pope, 
the  Guelphs,  and  King  Eobert ;  whilst  his  only  support  lay 
in  the  shattered  forces  of  the  Ghibellines,  who  deceived  him 
even  as  they  on  their  side  had  miscalculated  concerning 
him.  Yet  he  boldly  ventured  further  than  the  Hohen- 
staufens  had  done,  leaving  no  weapon  untried  in  the 
struggle  against  the  papacy  in  Avignon.  He  surrounded 
himself  with  learned  theologians  and  jurists.  Intellectual 
forces  and  ideas  were  at  that  time  called  forth  and  diffused, 
which  only  a  century  and  a  half  later  were  to  ripen  and 
change  the  face  of  Europe.  Failure,  nevertheless,  was  in- 
evitable, and  so  also  was  the  formidable  reaction  which  was 
to  take  place  in  Germany.  Yet  the  electoral  princes— a 
rare  occurrence  in  the  annals  of  Germany — unanimously  and 
energetically  ranged  themselves,  as  the  struggle  proceeded, 
upon  the  side  of  their  monarch.  The  proclamation  of  the 
electoral  assembly  at  Kense,  although  assuredly  laying 
more  stress  upon  the  rights  of  the  electors  than  upon  those 
of  the  empire  or  of  the  emperor,  found  an  echo  amongst 
the  people,  especially  of  the  towns,  which  for  the  most 


32  THE   HOUSE   OF   WITTELSBACI1  n 

part,  despite  many  years  of  interdict,  remained  steadfastly 
devoted  to  their  king.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Ludwig  might 
justly  lay  claim  to  their  gratitude,  since  his  greatest  merit 
consisted  in  having,  so  far  as  he  had  been  able,  raised  the 
condition  of  the  towns,  protected  them,  and  endowed  them 
with  manifold  privileges.  Emulating  the  example  of  the 
Luxemburgs  and  Habsburgs,  he  had  also  taken  in  hand 
the  establishment  of  a  great  Bavarian  power,  and  had  added 
Brandenburg  and  Holland  together  with  Hainault  to  his 
family  possessions.  Had  these  acquisitions  been  permanent, 
the  fate  of  Germany  might  have  taken  a  very  different 
course.  But  Ludwig  only  added  thereby  to  the  number  of 
his  enemies,  and  to  those  of  his  house.  The  territory 
acquired  in  North  Germany  and  the  Netherlands  was 
speedily  forfeited,  the  "Wittelsbachs  being  themselves  not 
without  blame  for  the  loss. 

After  the  death  of  Ludwig  the  empire  fell  into  the 
hands  of  Charles  IV.  of  Luxemburg,  who  even  before  that 
event  had  been  elected  by  a  disaffected  portion  of  the 
electors  ;  and  proved  himself  able  to  split  up  the  house  of 
Wittelsbach  by  his  unscrupulous  policy,  and  so  to  deprive 
it  permanently  of  any  importance  in  the  empire.  Family 
discord,  the  evil  genius  of  the  house,  coupled  with  a  foolish 
partition  of  the  inheritance  made  by  the  brothers  in  defian  ce 
of  their  imperial  father's  will,  played  into  the  emperor's 
hands.  By  a  public  breach  of  faith  he  deprived  Duke 
Ludwig  of  the  alternate  right  of  the  electoral  vote,  and 
bestowed  it  upon  the  Count  Palatine  alone,  thus  adding 
fresh  fuel  to  the  flames  of  hatred  by  which  this  house 
was  now  being  consumed,  which  in  1348  had  been  the 
strongest  in  Germany.  According  to  the  saying  of  the 
Emperor  Maximilian,  Charles  was  a  father  to  Bohemia 
and  a  step -father  to  the  empire.  He  looked  on  with 
indifference  whilst  the  imperial  provinces  were  given  over 
to  violence,  and  to  the  excesses  of  the  robber-bands  in  the 
pay  of  the  territorial  nobility.  His  pompous  journey  to 
Rome  for  coronation  only  revealed  the  utter  contempt  into 


ii  AND   ITS  PLACE   IN   GERMAN   HISTORY  33 

which  the  empire  had  fallen  in  the  peninsula ;  he  returned 
home  with  the  speed  of  a  fugitive.  Yet  he  succeeded  where 
for  a  hundred  years  past  every  emperor  had  failed  ;  for  he 
obtained  the  election  of  his  son  Wenzel  as  his  successor 
during  his  lifetime. 

The  deposition  of  Wenzel  at  Lahnstein  in  1400  was 
the  occasion  for  another  member  of  the  Wittelsbach  family 
to  ascend  the  throne.  But  the  condition  of  the  empire 
under  Wenzel  had  become  almost  intolerable.  Imperial 
authority  was  as  if  non-existent ;  a  chaos  of  lawlessness 
and  strife  met  the  eye  on  all  sides,  whilst  from  his  distant 
throne  in  the  Slavonic  country,  the  Bohemian  King  con- 
templated with  stupid  indifference  the  distractions  of  the 
empire.  The  electors  had  already,  five  years  before, 
threatened  to  take  the  administration  of  imperial  affairs 
into  their  own  hands,  and  had  then  vainly  solicited  the 
appointment  of  a  deputy  charged  with  that  office.  They 
now  set  up  Eupert  III.,  of  the  Palatinate,  against  him, 
whose  father  and  grandfather  had  both  given  proofs  of 
earnest  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  the  empire.  Now,  at 
last,  an  election  was  carried  without  bribery ;  Eupert  upon 
his  elevation  was  not  open  to  the  reproach  levelled  against 
his  predecessors,  that  *  florins  had  played  a  conspicuous 
part  in  it ;'  an  event  without  parallel  in  the  two  previous 
centuries  of  German  history. 

Meanwhile  Wenzel  maintained  his  position  ;  nor  were 
there  wanting  princes  and  towns  accustomed  to  rely  upon 
themselves,  and  ready  to  support  a  sovereign  who  remained 
inactive  and  at  a  distance.  Many,  too,  assumed  a  neutral, 
expectant  attitude.  Eupert  was  nowhere  acknowledged  in 
the  north.  Besides  this  it  remained  for  a  long  while  in- 
evitable in  Germany  that  each  succeeding  emperor  should 
enter  the  lists  with  fewer  resources,  since  in  those  days 
whoever,  not  content  with  the  mere  tinsel  of  royalty, 
resolved  upon  upholding  the  dignity  of  the  empire,  exposed 
himself  to  the  unwearied  assaults  of  a  legion  of  enemies. 

Eupert  began  his  reign   with  the   best   will   and   the 


84  THE   HOUSE   OF  WITTELSBACH  n 

noblest  intentions,  but  he  soon  found  his  own  cousin  siding 
with  his  opponents.  His  journey  to  Italy  resulted  only  in 
failure ;  the  ecclesiastical  princes  who  had  acknowledged 
him  hastened  to  disclaim  their  allegiance  as  soon  as  he 
required  of  them  any  sacrifice,  or  set  his  face  against 
anarchy.  The  League  of  Marbach,  formed  to  oppose  him, 
obliged  him  to  abandon  his  beneficent  projects,  such  for 
instance  as  the  destruction  of  the  robber-nests  and  other 
pests  of  the  land.  Even  his  best  enterprises  were  unrecog- 
nised and  unsupported  ;  only  in.  his  own  domain,  the  Pala- 
tinate, did  the  wisdom  of  his  administration  cause  his 
memory  to  be  revered. 

When  the  German  crown  again  passed  to  a  Habsburg, 
the  situation,  under  Frederick  III.,  became  even  worse  than 
under  Wenzel.  The  empire  was  out  of  course  ;  the  nation 
seemed  in  process  of  decomposition ;  whilst  the  emperor, 
indolent,  phlegmatic,  and  insensible  to  anything  but  family 
ambition,  looked  on  at  the  confusion,  intent  merely  upon 
hindering  every  reform  in  church  or  state — as  harmful  in 
his  own  dominions  as  he  was  pernicious  to  the  empire. 
The  most  prominent  member  at  that  moment  of  the 
Wittelsbach  family  was  Prince  Frederick  the  Victorious, 
Elector  Palatine.  Unacknowledged  by  the  emperor,  and 
finally  outlawed,  he  not  only  understood  how  to  assert  his 
rights,  but,  being  always  ready  to  come  to  blows  and  a 
master  in  the  art  of  acquisition  and  organisation,  he 
bequeathed  his  patrimony  to  his  successor  with  the  addition 
of  above  sixty  fortresses  and  towns. 

The  relations  of  the  Wittelsbachs  with  their  Austrian 
neighbours  were  often  unfriendly.  One  hundred  and  fifty 
years  previously  the  Bavarian  house  had  been  more  power- 
ful and  more  highly  esteemed  than  that  of  Habsburg.  But 
now  under  Maximilian  L,  1493-1519,  the  fortunes  of  the 
Habsburgs  rose,  whilst  those  of  the  Wittelsbachs  seemed 
to  decline.  The  former  had  become  possessed  of  Tyrol  in 
1363,  and  Maximilian  availed  himself  of  the  family  feud 
between  the  Palatinate  and  old-Bavarian  lines  to  wrest  the 


ii  AND   ITS   PLACE   IN   GERMAN   HISTORY  35 

valleys  of  the  Inn  and  the  Ziller  from  the  Bavarian  prince. 
The  Wittelsbachs  had  consequently  well-founded  reasons  for 
dislike  and  mistrust ;  whilst  as  princes  of  the  empire  they 
shared  in  the  general  discontent  against  the  monarch  who 
allowed  the  reforms  and  institutions,  which  in  1495  had 
been  hailed  with  delight,  to  fall  again  into  abeyance,  and 
treated  the  empire  only  as  an  instrument  for  the  advance 
of  his  own  hereditary  power.  Conscious  of  the  danger 
which  threatened  them,  they  perceived  the  necessity  for 
putting  an  end  to  the  partitions  of  the  inheritance.  A  new 
principality,  that  of  Neuberg  with  Sulzbach,  had  even  then 
just  been  erected  for  some  member  of  the  family ;  but  the 
Statute  of  Primogeniture  (1506)  raised  a  barrier  against 
these  subdivisions,  and  Bavaria  from  that  time  forth 
remained  an  hereditary  dukedom  of  which  the  succession 
devolved  upon  the  eldest  son. 

And  now  a  new,  a  third  epoch  begins ;  the  middle  ages 
have  run  their  course  and  have  bequeathed  to  the  coming 
period  a  rich  legacy  of  ideas  and  aspirations  hitherto  sup- 
pressed or  not  yet  brought  to  light.  Silently  they  had 
gathered  strength,  and  their  growth,  joined  to  the  new  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  of  the  age,  formed  together  a  pro- 
digious stream  of  new  ideas,  new  needs,  new  claims,  which, 
sweeping  all  before  it,  broke  into  every  department  of  life, 
and  most  forcibly  into  that  of  religion.  The  German  nation 
in  travail  brought  forth  the  Keformation,  which  after  a  few 
years  was  destined,  now  victorious,  now  trodden  under  foot, 
to  lay  hold  upon  every  state  and  nation  of  Europe. 

The  attitude  assumed  by  the  house  of  Wittelsbach 
towards  this  movement  was  destined  to  become  a  matter  of 
historical  importance. 

Within  twenty  or  thirty  years  the  most  prominent  of 
the  princely  houses  of  Germany,  besides  most  of  the  towns, 
had  joined  the  Eeformation  and  introduced  it  into  their 
provinces.  The  princes  of  the  Palatinate  had  been  of  the 
number.  The  majority  of  the  nobles  of  the  empire  took 
the  same  side.  About  the  year  1565  it  was  generally  sup- 

D   2 


36  THE   HOUSE   OF  WITTEL8BACH  11 

posed  that  nine-tenths  of  the  people  had  openly  become 
Protestants  or  were  secretly  attached  to  the  new  doctrines. 
There  was  no  difference  between  the  north  and  the  south 
in  this  respect.     Setting  aside  the  town  of  Jiilich,  which 
remained  Catholic  until  1609,  only  two  of  the  dominant 
families  of  Germany  persevered  on  the  Catholic  side,  the 
Habsburgs  and  the  ducal  branch  of  Wittelsbach.    Had  even 
the  latter  of  these  followed  the  powerful  impulse  to  which 
the  rest  had  given  way,  the  history  of  Germany,  or  even  of 
Europe  itself,  might  have  taken  an  entirely  different  course. 
The  empire,  '  the  Holy  Eoman  Empire  of  the  German 
people,'  as  it  had  become  in  the  middle  ages,  was  the  out- 
come of  hierarchical  conceptions,  a  half-priestly  institution, 
as  the  emperor  at  his  coronation,  serving  as  deacon  to  the 
pope  at  the  altar,  showed.     In  the  first  place  were  his  ser- 
vices due  to  the  church  ;  as  her  secular  arm  he  must  satisfy 
her  needs,  carry  out  her  sentences,  extend  her  jurisdiction. 
The  dependence  of  the  empire  upon  the  pope  and  the  eccle- 
siastical   princes   made   it   impossible   that   a   Protestant 
emperor  should  be  tolerated ;  a  decree  for  his  deposition 
would  at  once  have  been  issued,  and  would  have  given  the 
signal  for  invasion  to  foreign  monarchs,  above  all  to  France. 
The  half  Spanish,  half  German  Habsburger  was  well  aware 
of  this ;  Maximilian  II.  felt  it,  when  he  durst  not  avow  his 
Protestant  convictions ;  Frederick  II.  of  Prussia  acknow- 
ledged it,  when  upon  the  extinction  of  the  Habsburgs  in  the 
eighteenth  century  he  seemed  upon  the  point  of  securing 
the  imperial  crown. 

The  Wittelsbachs,  since  the  establishment  of  the  Statute 
of  Primogeniture,  had  found  it  expedient  to  provide  for  the 
younger  princes  of  their  family  through  the  ecclesiastical 
principalities  in  Bavaria  and  the  rest  of  Germany ;  and  this 
circumstance  constituted  a  strong  tie  to  bind  them  to  the 
old  church,  all  the  more  so  that  in  this  way  the  power  and 
influence  of  the  house  was  heightened  in  Germany.  The 
electoral  prince-bishopric  of  Cologne  remained  from  1583 
to  1761  uninterruptedly  in  the  hands  of  the  Wittelsbachs. 


AND  ITS  PLACE  IN  GERMAN  HISTORY  87 

Thus  it  fell  out  that  Wittelsbachs  and  Habshurgers  were 
in  accord  upon  church  matters ;  and  matrimony  stepped 
in  to  strengthen  the  bond  between  them.  The  peasant 
insurrection,  which  blazed  all  around  in  1525,  had  left 
Bavaria  undisturbed ;  but  neither  Duke  William  IV.  nor 
the  Emperor  Ferdinand  I.  was  able  to  stop  the  spread  of 
Protestant  doctrines  in  their  dominions.  This  much,  how- 
ever, they  obtained :  the  whole  framework  of  the  old  church 
system  and  forms  of  worship  were  preserved  intact  both  in 
Austria  and  Bavaria. 

Both  Ferdinand  and  Duke  Albert  V.  of  Bavaria  went 
indeed  so  far  as  to  demand  at  Eome  as  well  as  at  Trent  a 
comprehensive  and  thorough  reform  in  the  church,  not  in 
doctrine,  but  in  life,  discipline,  and  ritual.  This  being 
refused,  Albert  first,  and  William  likewise  after  him,  applied 
themselves,  with  all  the  coercive  means  at  their  disposal  and  . 
with  the  support  of  the  holy  see,  to  the  extirpation  of  th& 
new  confession. 

In  the  Palatinate  meanwhile  the  Eeformation  had  for- 
thirty  years  been  making  steady  but  silent  progress  before 
the  Elector  Otto  Henry  gave  it  open  and  unrestricted, 
admission,  the  two  subordinate  lines  of  Simmern  and 
Zweibriicken  having  already  done  so.  The  next  thing  that 
happened  was  that  the  succeeding  Elector  Frederick  III. 
declared  for  the  Calvinistic  in  preference  to  the  Lutheran 
doctrines  which  had  hitherto  been  generally  adopted  in 
Germany.  Here  again  the  act  of  a  WTittelsbacher  made  a 
decisive  mark  upon  the  course  of  events,  for  his  example  was 
presently  imitated  by  two  other  princes.  Thus  the  wedge 
of  dissension  was  introduced  into  the  compact  mass  of, 
German  Protestantism^  which  until  then  had  remained 
firmly  united  by  the  league  of  the  princes  with  the  towns. 
Lutheran  and  Calvinist  princes  stood  henceforth  in  active  or 
passive  opposition  to  one  another,  and  even  the  dread  of  a,, 
common  danger  could  not  suffice  to  restore  unanimity  inv 
their  counsels ;  the  wound  which  the  Protestant  cause 
received  at  that  time  has  only  been  healed  in  our  own  day*. 


38  THE   HOUSE   OF   WITTELSBACH  n 

Frederick's  great-grandson,  the  unfortunate  Frederick  V., 
paid  a  heavy  penalty  for  the  deed  of  his  ancestor. 

In  Bavaria  the  counter-reformation  was  accomplished 
under  William  V. ;  herewith  the  restrictions  imposed  upon 
the  ruler  by  the  three  estates  had  given  way  as  they  had 
also  done  in  Austria ;  and  the  Elector  Maximilian  I.  found 
himself  free  to  dispose,  even  to  exhaustion  if  he  pleased,  of 
the  utmost  resources  of  his  country.  Bavaria  was  now  for 
the  first  time  an  independent  state  under  the  strong  hand 
of  a  wise  and  energetic  prince  whose  thought  and  will  were 
steadily  directed  towards  one  object.  She  had  now  become 
a  power  with  which  the  European  powers  had  to  reckon, 
a  power  which  might  even  be  called  upon  to  decide  the 
future  of  Germany. 

And  now,  once  again,  it  is  remarkable  how  Wittelsbach 
stood  opposed  to  Wittelsbach.  This  time  the  opposition 
was  of  wide  historical  import :  Bavaria  against  the  Rhenish 
Palatinate,  the  League  against  the  Union.  The  princes  of 
the  Palatinate  were  now  the  support  of  advancing  and 
aggressive  Protestantism.  They  endeavoured  to  unite  the 
Protestants  at  home  and  abroad  for  common  defence. 
Whilst  the  electoral  house  of  Saxony,  which  at  first  had 
stood  at  the  head  of  the  evangelical  movement,  now  became 
more  and  more  closely  allied  with  the  imperial  house,  the 
Electors  Palatine  brought  armed  support  to  the  French 
Protestants,  aided  the  people  of  the  Netherlands  in  the 
struggle  for  religion  and  freedom  against  Spain,  and  placed 
themselves  at  the  head  of  the  Evangelical  Union,  whose 
members  recognised  that  they  must  expect  no  quarter  from 
the  authorities  of  the  empire,  and  that  combination  and 
self-reliance  alone  could  save  them  from  falling  victims  to 
the  league  for  the  extirpation  of  Protestantism.  Opposed 
to  them  we  find  Maximilian  at  the  head  of  the  Catholic 
League,  by  joining  which  the  ecclesiastical  princes  sought 
safety  and  help  against  the  outward  pressure  which  they 
dreaded  from  the  wholesale  conversion  of  their  subjects  to 
Protestantism.  It  was  imagined  by  many,  and  above  all 


n  AND   ITS   PLACE   IN  GEEMAN  HISTORY  39 

by  the  most  powerful  and  influential  society  of  tne  time, 
that  the  moment  had  come,  or  at  least  was  approaching, 
when  all  Germany  would  again  be  united  under  the  rule  of 
pope  and  emperor. 

In  1619,  the  Emperor  Matthias  having  died  childless, 
the  Duke  of  Bavaria  was  invited  to  become  a  candidate  for 
the  imperial  throne.  His  friends  put  him  in  mind  of  his 
ancestor  the  Emperor  Ludwig ;  the  Elector  of  Cologne 
was  his  brother ;  his  cousin  the  Elector  Palatine  came  in 
person  to  persuade  him  ;  the  ecclesiastical  princes  would 
gladly  have  seen  the  imperial  power  and  their  own  claims  in 
the  hands  of  the  leader  of  the  League.  Nevertheless,  he 
declined,  declaring  himself  in  favour  of  Ferdinand  of 
Habsburg. 

And  now  followed  those  heavy  blows  which  plunged 
Germany  into  the  horrors  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
whereby  the  country  was  laid  waste  with  fire  and  sword, 
and  the  people  brought  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  Our  father- 
land, chiefly  at  the  hands  of  her  own  sons  under  foreign 
leadership,  was  reduced  to  a  wilderness  and  the  people 
to  barbarism.  Two  centuries  were  needed  to  raise  them 
again  from  the  depth  to  which  they  had  fallen. 

Whilst  the  election  of  Ferdinand  was  taking  place  at 
Frankfort,  the  Bohemians  proclaimed  the  Count  Palatine 
as  their  king.  Thereupon  Maximilian,  having  obtained 
from  the  emperor  the  promise  of  the  electoral  dignity  as 
well  as  of  any  portion  of  territory  which  he  might  wrest 
from  his  cousin,  marched  against  the  Bohemians  at  the 
head  of  an  army  in  the  pay  of  the  pope  and  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical princes,  defeated  them  at  the  White  Hill,  and  took 
terrible  vengeance  upon  them  by  the  executions  at  Prague. 
Having  caused  himself  to  be  entrusted  with  the  execution 
of  the  ban  of  the  empire  against  his  cousin,  Maximilian 
conquered  the  Upper  and  Khenish  Palatinates,  and,  by 
gaining  possession  of  the  electoral  vote,  destroyed  the 
equal  balance  which  had  hitherto  existed  in  the  electoral 
college  between  the  votes  of  the  two  confessions.  A 


40  THE   HOUSE   OF  WITTELSBACH  n 

Catholic  majority  was  thus  created  amongst  the  princes  in 
whose  hands  the  government  of  Germany  had  rested  during 
the  reigns  of  the  three  preceding  emperors. 

The  Union  was  dissolved  ;  the  evangelical  doctrine  was 
banished  from  the  hereditary  and  crown  lands  of  Austria ; 
victory  after  victory  was  won  by  the  armies  of  the  empire 
and  the  League,  and  Ferdinand,  finding  himself  more 
powerful  in  Germany  than  Charles  V.  had  been,  turned  his 
mind  to  the  hope  of  re-uniting  Spain  with  Austria,  and  to 
the  re-establishment  of  a  universal  empire.  He  made 
a  Spanish  settlement  of  the  Lower  Palatinate,  and  did  all 
in  his  power  to  promote  the  establishment  of  these  enemies 
of  Germany  in  the  Ehine  lands. 

Meanwhile  he  durst  not  put  aside  the  remembrance 
that  he  owed  to  Maximilian  the  rescue  of  his  house  from 
the  dangerous  situation  in  which  it  had  been  placed.  And 
how  powerful  the  influence  of  that  prince  then  was,  is 
apparent  in  the  Edict  of  Eestitution  and  the  release  of 
Wallenstein,  wrung  from  the  emperor  at  the  assembly  of 
the  Diet  in  1630.  Maximilian  himself  had  perceived  the 
necessity  of  winning  the  support  of  France  if  he  wished  to 
preserve  the  preponderance  of  his  influence  in  the  empire 
and  to  secure  possession  of  the  much-contested  electoral 
dignity.  He  it  was  who  set  the  precedent  afterwards  too 
freely  followed  by  his  successors,  and,  by  a  secret  treaty 
with  Eichelieu,  secured  the  electoral  dignity  together  with 
territories  which  he  had  recently  acquired. 

What  followed  is  well  known :  the  defeat  of  the  League 
and  of  the  imperial  forces ;  Gustavus  Adolphus  in  Munich  ; 
Pope  Urban  VIII,,  irritated  with  the  proceedings  of  the 
Habsburgs  in  Italy,  siding  with  France  and  thus  indirectly 
with  Sweden.  France  after  the  death  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus  began  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  war.  Under 
the  influence  of  a  common  danger  the  emperor  and 
Maximilian  were  again  drawn  together,  and  each  strained 
his  resources  to  the  utmost  to  continue  the  war,  although 
victory  had  ceased  to  favour  his  standard.  Once  again  in 


n  AND   ITS   PLACE   IN   GERMAN   HISTORY  41 

the  last  and  most  destructive  years  of  this  long  war  was 
Maximilian  destined  to  see  his  country  trodden  under  foot  by 
hostile  armies,  and  himself  a  fugitive  in  Braunau.  Nothing 
then  remained  but  to  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of 
France,  making  over  Elsass  to  that  country  as  the  price  of 
her  intervention.  It  was  a  bitter  destiny  which  brought 
Bavaria  and  Germany  to  utter  destitution  under  the  ablest 
of  all  the  princes  of  the  elder  branch  of  "Wittelsbach. 

The  Peace  of  Westphalia  turned  out  favourably  to  the 
interests  of  the  two  cousins.  The  Bavarian  house  retained 
the  electoral  dignity  and  the  Upper  Palatinate,  in  considera- 
tion, however,  of  the  payment  of  thirteen  millions  to  the 
imperial  house.  Upon  the  Count  Palatine  was  conferred, 
with  the  recovery  of  the  Ehenish  Palatinate,  an  eighth  vote 
as  well  as  the  restoration  of  his  family  as  Counts  of  Sim- 
mern.  But  Germany  and  the  empire  fared  badly;  the 
territory  ceded  to  France  and  Sweden  amounted  in  area  to 
the  extent  of  a  kingdom.  Kuin  had  at  last  overtaken  the 
old  empire ;  only  a  shadow  of  supremacy  remained  to  the 
emperor;  the  princes  had  become  totally  independent, 
with  the  right  of  concluding  alliances  and  treaties  with 
foreign  powers;  whilst  both  France  and  Germany  had 
acquired  the  power  henceforth  to  interfere,  as  guarantors 
of  the  peace  which  had  just  been  concluded,  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  Germany,  a  power  of  which  France  especially 
was  not  backward  in  availing  herself.  As  henceforth 
there  existed  no  common  policy  for  Germany — Austria, 
Brandenburg,  Saxony,  having  each  their  own — Bavaria, 
consulting  only  her  own  interests,  was  forced  by  Austria  to 
turn  her  eyes  more  and  more  persistently  westwards. 

When  Karl  Ludwig,  the  son  of  the  unfortunate  Frederick, 
returned,  after  fifteen  years'  exile  spent  in  London,  to  the 
ancestral  lands  which  he  had  quitted  as  a  child,  it  was  to 
find  his  country  impoverished  and  depopulated;  trans- 
formed from  a  garden  to  a  wilderness.  It  was  calculated 
that  only  a  fiftieth  part  of  the  inhabitants  remained.  Yet 
the  Palatinate,  under  the  wise  and  beneficent  government 


42  THE   HOUSE   OF  WITTELSBACH  n 

of  this  prince,  speedily  began  again  to  flourish,  the  exiles 
or  emigrants  who  had  left  it  returned,  and  religious  free- 
dom attracted  new  and  industrious  settlers.  But  it  is 
indicative  of  the  situation,  that  even  the  emperor  had  not 
sufficient  authority  to  induce  the  Spaniards  whom  his 
father  had  imported,  and  who  had  become  the  pests  of  the 
country,  to  evacuate  the  fortress  of  Frankenthal ;  they 
remained  there  for  some  years  longer.  This  circumstance 
was  a  warning  to  the  Palatinate  that  nothing  could  now  be 
expected  trom  the  imperial  court.  The  elector  was  soon 
obliged  to  recognise  that,  in  all  that  concerned  the  political 
life  and  welfare  of  his  dominions,  nothing  was  to  be  hoped 
or  feared  from  any  one  but  his  powerful  French  neighbour. 
Acting  upon  this  view  he  gave  his  only  daughter  Charlotte 
Elisabeth  in  marriage  to  the  dissipated  brother  of  Louis 
XIV.,  '  a  sacrificial  lamb  offered  upon  the  altar  of  policy ' 
as  she  described  herself.  All  in  vain  ;  it  was  precisely  she 
who,  resembling  her  father  in  mind  and  character,  furnished 
the  pretext  which  led  to  the  devastation  of  her  native  land 
by  fire  and  sword  in  a  manner  that  surpassed  the  cruelty 
and  horror  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

Bavaria,  as  compared  with  the  Palatinate,  which  since 
1679  had  been  a  battle-field  for  the  French  legions,  might 
almost  be  called  happy.  Under  the  gentle  rule  of  Ferdinand 
Maria,  the  weak  but  well-meaning  son  of  Maximilian,  the 
country  slowly  but  surely  revived,  the  more  so  that,  acting 
under  the  advice  of  his  mother,  who  was  a  Habsburg,  the 
duke  had  the  tact  to  reject  the  specious  gift  of  the  imperial 
crown  which  after  the  death  of  Ferdinand  III.  Mazarin 
had  designed  for  him,  and  at  the  same  time  to  aid  in  pre- 
venting the  choice  from  falling  upon  Louis  XIV. 

Very  different  were  the  counsels  followed  by  his  son  Max 
Emanuel,  the  courageous,  brilliant,  but  fickle  and  unprin- 
cipled pupil  of  the  women  at  the  court  of  Versailles.  When 
scarcely  twenty  years  of  age  he  had  assisted  with  his 
Bavarians  at  the  siege  of  Vienna  and  in  driving  the  Turks 
out  of  Hungary.  He  had  then,  in  the  service  of  the 


AND   ITS   PLACE   IN  GERMAN   HISTORY  43 

emperor  upon  the  Khine,  turned  his  arms  against  Louis 
XIV.  and  had  become  the  Spanish  stadtholder  in  Brussels. 
Deceived  in  his  brilliant  hopes  by  the  loss  of  his  son,  who 
was  looked  upon  as  heir  to  the  Spanish  throne,  and 
embittered  in  his  feelings  against  the  imperial  house ; 
attracted  also  by  the  splendid  promises  of  the  French 
King,  Max  Emanuel  joined  Louis  in  the  war  of  succession 
which  was  just  breaking  out,  and  with  his  connivance 
attempted  to  transfer  the  imperial  crown  from  the  Habsburg 
to  the  Wittelsbach  line  and  to  enrich  himself  by  the 
annexation  of  some  Austrian  provinces.  The  contest 
ended  in  his  speedy  defeat,  and  the  court  of  Vienna  was 
unsparing  in  its  revenge.  With  the  combined  consent  of 
the  other  electors,  both  he  and  his  brother  were  placed 
under  the  ban  of  the  empire,  for  the  latter,  Joseph  Clement, 
Prince  Bishop  of  Cologne,  had  also  been  deeply  implicated 
in  the  affair  with  Louis  XIV. ;  the  French  had  occupied 
the  electoral  state  and  were  now  proceeding  to  treat  it  as 
an  incorporated  part  of  the  French  dominions.  Nothing 
remained  to  the  prince  but  the  appearance  of  authority, 
for  he  had  become  merely  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  French 
ministers  and  generals. 

The  whole  of  Bavaria  was  in  the  enemy's  hands. 
According  to  the  order  of  the  Emperor  Leopold  to  his 
generals  (1703)  the  country  was  to  be '  pressed  and  drained ' 
to  the  utmost,  for  the  benefit  of  the  imperial  exchequer. 
A  popular  rising  which  was  excited  by  this  intolerable 
oppression  was  put  down  by  force. 

In  1705  the  emperor  pronounced  the  final  deposition  of 
the  house  of  Wittelsbach  in  Bavaria,  which  country  had 
now  been  twice  subdued.  Portions  of  the  country  were 
allotted  to  the  imperial  favourites  and  ministers;  the 
district  of  the  Inn  was  absorbed  into  Upper  Austria; 
the  chapter-lands  of  Augsburg  were  enlarged.  The  whole 
of  the  Bavarian  people — such  was  the  state  of  frenzy 
reached  in  Vienna — was  sentenced  to  capital  punishment ; 
but,  as  an  act  of  clemency,  the  sentence  was  only  to  be 


44  THE   HOUSE   OF   WITTELSEACH  n 

enforced  upon  every  fiftieth  man  in  the  towns,  and  every 
tenth  man  in  the  country.  Fortunately  the  power  required 
to  carry  out  the  wrathful  edict  was  wanting.  So  com- 
pletely forgotten  were  all  the  heavy  sacrifices  of  blood  and 
treasure  which  Bavaria  during  eighty  years  had  made  in 
the  interests  of  the  Habshurgs ;  it  was  even  forgotten  that 
but  a  few  years  had  elapsed  since  30,000  Bavarians  had 
laid  down  their  lives  to  win  back  Hungary  for  the  house 
of  Habsburg. 

The  partiality  of  the  Wittelsbach  princes  for  the  French 
alliance  appears  to  us  now  an  almost  inexplicable  blunder. 
It  had  sprung  up  towards  the  end  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
and  had  now  lasted  fifty  years.  Yet  it  becomes  more  com- 
prehensible, and  at  any  rate  seems  less  unnatural,  if  we 
carefully  survey  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  condition  of 
Germany  at  that  time. 

The  fast-decaying  constitution  of  the  empire  was  a 
tissue  of  contradictions  and  fundamental  falsehoods.  Its 
supremacy,  now  that  it  had  neither  revenues  nor  a  central 
seat  of  government,  had  disappeared.  Its  hereditary  states, 
even  the  German  provinces,  were  becoming  more  and  more 
disconnected  in  their  relations  with  the  rest  of  Germany. 
Institutions  created  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole,  whenever 
the  court  of  Vienna  had  interfered,  had  been  corrupted  or 
paralysed.  This  was  the  case  not  only  with  the  permanent 
Diet  at  Katisbon — from  which  the  princes  now  kept  aloof— 
with  its  empty  pomposity,  its  proverbial  somnolence,  and 
petty) wrangling  over  titles  and  ceremonial ;  but  also  with  the 
universally  despised  and  abortive  administration  of  justice 
in  the  imperial  courts.  The  military  system  was  pitiable  : 
no  German  army  existed,  and  the  so-called  imperial  army 
had  grown  to  be  the  laughing-stock  of  the  people.  On  the 
most  exposed  frontier  of  the  empire  was  established  a 
long  series  of  ecclesiastical  princes  who,  being  incapable  of 
defending  either  themselves  or  the  empire,  naturally  fell 
under  French  influence,  and  offered  to  the  longing  eyes  of 
their  too  powerful,  and  now  also  too  audacious  neigh- 


ii  AND   ITS  PLACE   IN  GERMAN  HISTORY  45 

bour,  the  tempting  spectacle  of  German  impotence.  The 
Electorate  of  Cologne,  which  had  become  a  dependency 
of  the  Wittelsbachs,  was  now  together  with  Mainz  a 
favourite  object  for  French  diplomatists,  who  possessed  in 
this  way  a  lever  for  their  designs  both  upon  the  lower  Ehine 
and  the  Isar. 

National  feeling  no  longer  existed  in  Germany ;    self- 
reliance  and  public  spirit  amongst  the  people  were  wanting  ; 
the  consideration  that  besides  religion  there  might  be  other 
great  interests  common  to  all  and  for  which  every  German 
should  be  answerable,  was  felt  by  few  and  expressed  by  fewer 
still.     There  was  no  public  organ  through  which  patriotic 
men  might  appeal  to  the  ears  of  the  people.     The  Germans, 
destitute  of  intellectual  wealth,  and  with  a  language  that  had 
become  harsh,  awkward,  and  inharmonious,  turned,  in  the 
absence  of  any  popular  literature  of  their  own,  to  the  study  of 
French,  which  precisely  at  that  time  had  reached  the  height 
of  its  classical  bloom.     To  their  eyes  in  consequence  Louis 
appeared  invested  in  the  triple  splendour  of  a  bold  conqueror 
and  commander  ;  a  master  in  the  art  of  government,  and 
magnanimous  patron  of  letters,  art,  and  science ;  a  fascina- 
ting ideal,  to  be  gazed  upon  with  reverence  and  amazement. 
Versailles  was  the  school  for  German  princes  in  their  youth 
and  the  pattern  diligently  copied  by  the  courts  beyond  the 
Rhine.      With  what  enthusiasm  does  even  Leibnitz,  the 
most  distinguished  of  German  thinkers,  write  of  the  mag- 
nificence of  Louis — what  hopes  does  he  found  upon  him  ! 
Yet  none  was  more  fully  aware  than  Leibnitz  of  the  danger 
which  threatened  Germany  through  the  French  Monarch, 
nor    had   expressed   it   more   emphatically.      In   Bavaria 
there  was  moreover  the  highly  important  fact,  that  even  at 
the  papal  court  the  prestige  and  influence  of  France  was 
greater  than  that  of  the  imperial  court :  for  since  the  time 
of  the  Reformation  the  authority  of  the  papal  chair  had 
in  political  matters  usually  been  paramount  in  Munich. 
Each   political  question   had   its   ecclesiastical  side,  and, 
owing  to  continual  complications  arising  with  the  seven 


46  THE    HOUSE   OF   WITTELSBACH  11 

neighbouring  bishops,  who  were  all  princes  of  the  empire, 
the  court  of  Munich  had  every  reason  for  trying  to  act  in 
accordance  with  the  will  of  the  papal  court,  a  consideration 
that  was  well  understood  in  Paris. 

As  to  Austria  herself,  Louis,  thanks  to  his  excellent 
diplomatists,  was  often  as  powerful  and  lucky  in  policy  at 
Vienna  as  at  other  courts.  The  Emperor  Leopold  in  1668 
had,  in  a  secret  treaty  with  his  arch-enemy  the  French 
King  concerning  the  Spanish  succession,  come  to  an  under- 
standing about  the  elder  branch  of  the  Habsburgs ;  and 
statesmanship  in  Vienna  was  henceforth  directed  towards 
anxiously  avoiding  any  step  which  might  be  displeasing  to 
the  French  Monarch.  French  gold,  besides,  operated  so 
efficaciously  upon  Leopold's  counsellors  and  ministers  that 
General  Montecuculi  complained  that  the  orders  transmitted 
to  him  by  his  imperial  master  were  known  in  Paris  before 
he  received  them.  Leopold  forwarded  his  congratulations 
to  the  king  upon  his  victories  over  the  heretics  of  the 
Netherlands  at  the  very  time  that  he  was  sending  an  army 
to  protect  them. 

Since  the  imperial  crown  had  become  hereditary  in  the 
house  of  Habsburg  the  empire  had  been  suffering  continual 
losses,  for  which  the  Habsburgs  themselves  were  chiefly 
responsible.  The  German  Netherlands  had  been  ceded  to 
Spain ;  the  separation  from  Switzerland  had  been  occasioned 
under  Maximilian  I.  by  an  unlucky  wrar  with  the  confede- 
rates of  that  country.  Since  then,  by  the  Peace  of  West- 
phalia, Ferdinand  III.  had  acknowledged  the  sovereignty  of 
France  over  the  three  bishoprics  of  Lothringen,  and  had 
evacuated  Elsass.  Leopold  I.  consented  to  resign  the  count- 
ship  of  Burgundy,  and  to  hand  over  Freiburg  to  Louis, 
who  in  1697  was  nevertheless  forced  to  cede  it  again  to 
the  emperor  when  with  the  consent  of  the  latter  he  retained 
the  fortress  of  Strasburg.  In  1713  the  Emperor  Charles 
VI.  voluntarily  abandoned  the  whole  of  Lothringen,  the 
duke,  his  son-in-law,  receiving  Tuscany  in  exchange.  The 
Dukedom  of  Milan,  although  still  properly  belonging  to  the 


n  AND   ITS  PLACE   IN  GERMAN   HISTORY  47 

empire,  had  long  since  ceased  to  be  considered  as  such. 
Nothing  under  these  circumstances  could  seem  more  natural 
than  that  Austria  and  Germany  should  regard  one  another 
as  foreigners,  and  that  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  Vienna 
to  assert  a  right  of  supremacy  or  to  interfere  with  German 
affairs,  should  be  resented  in  most  parts  of  Germany  as  an 
encroachment  upon  German  freedom. 

Max  Emanuel  and  his  brother  were  reinstated  in  their 
rank  and  possessions  by  the  Peace  of  Kastatt  in  1714,  and 
it  tends  to  the  honour  of  the  former  that  he  sent  his 
Bavarians  to  assist  the  emperor  against  the  Turks  and  in 
the  taking  of  Belgrade.  Twenty-six  years  later  the  pro- 
spect of  the  imperial  throne  was  again  opened  to  the 
Wittelsbachs.  The  male  line  of  the  house  of  Habsburg 
had  become  extinct  with  the  death  of  Charles  VI.,  after 
having  in  a  period  of  four  hundred  and  sixty-seven  years 
furnished  sixteen  emperors  to  the  German  throne.  The 
Wittelsbachs,  of  all  the  families  which  had  worn  the 
imperial  crown,  now  alone  remained,  and  were  moreover 
of  purely  German  origin,  whereas  Maria  Theresa's  husband 
the  Duke  of  Lorraine,  to  whom  the  throne  was  destined  in 
Vienna,  was  a  descendant  of  the  French  house  of  Vaudemont. 
Many  of  the  electors  agreed  with  the  opinion  expressed  by 
Frederick  that,  under  an  emperor  of  another  house,  the 
reproaches  abundantly  levelled  against  the  court  of  Vienna 
for  oppression  and  persecution  in  matters  of  religion,  and  as 
to  the  administration  of  imperial  justice,  would  cease ;  and 
that  it  was  desirable  for  the  empire  to  have  at  its  head  a 
sovereign  who  had  no  possessions  abroad,  and  would  not 
be  perpetually  involving  the  empire  in  foreign  wars  as  the 
Austrian  house  had  done. 

Upon  this  last  question  of  succession  to  the  imperial 
crown  Bavaria  and  the  Palatinate  had  at  last  laid  aside 
their  old  differences  and  entered  into  close  alliance  together. 
The  unanimous  election  of  Charles  Albert  by  the  electoral 
princes  followed — an  event  which  was  chiefly  due  to  the 
political  activity  of  Frederick  II.  of  Prussia.  This  prince 


48  THE   HOUSE   OF   WITTELSBACH  n 

was  equally  rejoiced  to  see  Bavaria  strengthened  and 
Austria  weakened  by  the  transfer  of  the  imperial  crown. 

Charles  VII.  thus  suddenly  found  himself  the  head  of 
three  hundred  and  seventy  sovereign  princes  and  estates ; 
emperor  of  a  realm  without  a  soldier  and  with  only  a  few 
thousand  florins  of  revenue.  Munich,  it  was  to  be  expected, 
would  take  the  place  of  Vienna  as  the  capital  and  as  the 
seat  of  the  imperial  council.  The  imperial  dignity,  although 
carrying  with  it  no  direct  accession  of  power,  afforded 
facilities  for  laying  the  foundation  of  a  family  power  beyond 
any  which  Bavaria  at  that  time  could  offer.  Charles 
Albert's  first  step  was  to  put  in  claims  to  the  succession 
of  the  Bohemian  Kingdom  and  the  Austrian  Archduchy  ; 
but  to  support  these  it  was  necessary  to  have  recourse  to 
arms. 

A  magic  influence,  powerful  if  not  outwardly  perceptible, 
still  lay  in  the  imperial  crown,  identified  as  that  crown 
still  was  with  the  ancient  royal  crown  of  Germany.  In 
the  north  this  influence  seemed  to  have  died  out,  for  the 
Habsburg  emperor  was  there  only  known  as  a  persecutor 
of  the  religion  of  the  land  and  a  traitor  to  the  border  pro- 
vinces ;  but  it  was  potent  still  in  the  ecclesiastical  princi- 
palities, and  especially  in  the  south,  divided  as  it  was 
among  a  number  of  small  and  very  small  potentates.  An 
emperor  sprung  from  the  oldest  German  house,  possessed 
of  a  German  crown  province,  supported  by  a  vigorous 
army,  and  surrounded  by  experienced  statesmen,  might 
soon  have  awakened  the  long-slumbering  hopes  of  a  resus- 
citated empire,  and  have  found  a  joyful  welcome  in  mil- 
lions of  German  hearts. 

But  how  far  was  the  sad  reality  from  this  ideal  of 
imperial  revival !  Charles  Albert  possessed  no  counsellor 
and  general,  as  the  last  emperor  had  possessed  in  Prince 
Eugene ;  his  only  adviser  was  Count  Torring.  Feeble  as 
the  empire  had  become,  it  was,  notwithstanding,  the 
pivot  of  European  politics,  to  hold  the  tangled  threads  of 
which,  the  ministers  and  diplomatists  of  an  emperor  had 


ii  AND   ITS   PLACE   IN   GERMAN   HISTORY  49 

need  of  strong  and  skilful  hands.  But  the  condition  of 
education  in  Bavaria  at  that  time  was  not  such  as  to  offer 
a  choice  of  useful  men  trained  in  the  conduct  of  public 
affairs,  neither  could  the  impoverished  country  supply  the 
necessary  funds  for  any  enterprise.  Charles  therefore 
found  himself  entirely  thrown  back  upon  France  and 
Prussia  for  assistance.  Therein  he  stood  opposed  to  a 
remarkable  woman,  Maria  Theresa,  who  in  activity,  fore- 
sight, and  manly  courage  surpassed  all  former  sovereigns 
of  the  Habsburg  family  who  had  sat  on  either  throne  since 
the  days  of  Charles  V.  Albert  was  quickly  deprived  of  the 
Bohemian  crown  which  he  had  placed  upon  his  own  head 
in  Prague,  and  proved  himself  moreover  to  be  utterly 
incapable  of  holding  the  reins  of  government  in  Germany. 
After  his  early  death  in  1745  nothing  remained  for  his  son 
Max  Joseph  III.  but  to  renounce  by  the  Treaty  of  Fiissen 
all  claims  to  the  inheritance,  and  to  give  his  vote  for  the 
election  of  the  husband  of  Maria  Theresa  in  exchange  for 
his  own  conquered  Bavaria.  The  direct  line  of  Ludwig  of 
Wittelsbach,  which  had  reigned  in  Bavaria  for  nearly  five 
centuries,  became  extinct  December  30,  1777,  by  the  death 
of  Maximilian  III.,  a  well-meaning  prince,  beloved  and 
regretted  by  his  subjects.  Bavaria  and  the  Palatinate,  after 
a  separation  of  four  hundred  and  eighty-eight  years,  now 
once  more  became  united  under  Charles  Theodore. 

The  new  prince,  like  his  predecessor,  had  no  legitimate 
descendants.  He  quitted  with  reluctance  his  territories  of 
the  Rhine  to  take  up  his  residence  in  Munich,  and  readily 
entered  into  a  plan  of  exchange,  by  which  he  contemplated 
ceding  Bavaria,  or  at  any  rate  the  most  considerable  part 
of  it,  to  Austria. 

Maria  Theresa  had  set  her  heart  upon  the  acquisition 
of  Bavaria.  Lord  Stair,  an  English  statesman,  had  sug- 
gested to  her  some  time  before  that  Elsass  and  Lothringen, 
reconquered  and  erected  into  a  kingdom,  might  form  an 
exchange  for  Bavaria.  Her  thoughts,  at  a  later  period, 
turned  towards  Naples  and  Sicily.  Bavaria,  Prince  Kaunitz 


50  THE  HOUSE   OF  WITTELSBACH  n 

also  suggested,  would  be  a  fitting  compensation  for  Silesia 
which  she  had  lost ;  a  foot  of  Bavarian  soil  was,  he 
remarked,  worth  more  than  whole  districts  elsewhere ;  the 
house  of  Wittelsbach,  always  dangerous  from  its  central 
position,  would  be  better  removed  from  the  middle  of 
Europe  to  a  distance,  and  established  in  the  south  of  Italy. 
Kaunitz  insisted  that  Austria  ought  to  retain  the  Nether- 
lands, a  far  richer  country — as  the  opposition  of  the  mari- 
time powers  might  be  assumed — and  yet  appropriate  a 
good  slice  of  Bavaria  to  form  a  *  satisfactory  boundary 
for  the  archducal  domains.'  The  Upper  Palatinate  must 
also  be  taken,  to  interpose  a  good  barrier  against  the 
Margraviates  of  Bayreuth  and  Anspach  belonging  to  Bran- 
denburg. 

Upon  the  death  of  Maximilian  III.,  Maria  Theresa 
opposed  at  first  the  resolution  of  her  son  Joseph  to  proceed 
at  once  with  the  military  occupation  of  Bavaria,  but 
soon  afterwards  acceded  to  his  desire,  and  the  Austrian 
troops  were  put  in  motion.  Charles  Theodore  had  actually 
signed  the  treaty  by  which,  without  the  consent  of  the 
estates  of  the  country,  or  of  the  Duke  of  Zweibriicken,  who 
was  the  rightful  heir,  the  best  part  of  Bavaria  was  made 
over  to  Austria.  The  mysterious  behaviour  of  Charles 
Albert  has  never  yet  been  explained  ;  he  remained  a  passive 
spectator  of  the  rapid  advance  of  the  Austrians  from 
Straubing  upon  the  surrounding  country.  The  phantom 
Diet  dared  not  offer  a  remonstrance.  Frederick  II.,  how- 
ever, flew  to  arms.  Even  Kussia,  to  whom  this  first 
occasion  for  meddling  in  the  affairs  of  Germany  was  wel- 
come, interfered  ;  France  raised  her  voice ;  Saxony  and 
Mecklenburg- Schwerin  put  forth  claims  to  the  inheritance, 
which  were  at  least  as  valid  as  the  feeble  pretensions  of 
Austria.  Lectures  were  delivered  in  the  universities  upon 
the  question,  which  had  grown  to  be  of  European  interest. 
Frederick's  army  marched  into  Bohemia,  and  a  war  was 
commenced,  poor  in  feats  of  arms  but  destructive  enough, 
which  ended  in  the  Peace  of  Teschen.  Austria  was 


it  AND   ITS   PLACE   IN   GERMAN   HISTORY  51 

repulsed,  and   contented   herself  with   the   spoils    of  the 
district  of  the  Inn. 

In  1785  Charles  Theodore,  to  whom  the  possession  of 
Bohemia  seemed  to  have  become  a  burden,  again  negoti- 
ated with  Joseph  II.  for  an  exchange  of  countries.  It 
was  agreed  that  he  should  receive  the  Netherlands  as  a 
Burgundian  Kingdom  in  place  of  Bavaria.  But  Frederick 
II.  again  frustrated  this  design  with  the  help  of  the  con- 
federate princes. 

During  the  first  years  of  the  French  Bevolution,  when 
the  possession  of  Belgium  had  become  uncertain  and 
dangerous  for  Austria,  the  court  of  Vienna  once  more 
attempted  to  acquire  Bavaria  in  exchange  for  Belgium. 
Prussia,  as  the  price  of  her  consent,  was  to  be  allowed  to 
take  part  of  Poland ;  but  the  affair  miscarried  upon  Austria 
raising  a  further  claim  upon  Anspach  and  Bayreuth.  It  is 
true  that  Francis  Joseph,  who  had  the  acquisition  of 
Bavaria  much  at  heart,  hastened  to  drop  the  claim  to  the 
Franconian  provinces  ;  but  Belgium  had  meanwhile  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  French.  Charles  Theodore,  whose 
constant  dread  was  the  sudden  occupation  of  his  dominions 
by  a  military  coup-de-main  on  the  part  of  Austria,  allowed 
himself  to  be  drawn  on  into  negotiations  with  the  holders 
of  power  in  Paris,  a  proceeding  which  was  characterised  in 
Vienna  as  an  act  of  treason  against  the  empire. 

In  the  complicated  state  of  European  affairs  this  desire 
upon  the  part  of  Austria  to  gain  possession  of  Bavaria 
was  for  ever  breaking  out.  England  pointed  out  in  vain 
that  when  they  were  in  arms  against  the  French  Eevolu- 
tion was  not  the  time  to  incur  the  blame,  themselves,  of 
revolutionary  acts  of  violence.  The  acquisition  of  Bavaria 
by  Austria  was  again  inserted  as  a  secret  article  in  a  treaty 
concluded  with  Eussia  in  1795,  containing  an  offensive  and 
defensive  alliance  between  the  two  imperial  courts  against 
Prussia.  The  Minister  Thugut  thought  and  acted  upon 
this  point  as  Kaunitz  had  done.  Even  in  the  Peace  of 
Campo  Formio,  concluded  with  France  in  1797,  the  fifth 

E    2 


52  THE   HOUSE   OF  WITTEL8BACH  n 

secret  article  runs  thus :  *  The  French  Republic  shall  pro- 
vide that  a  portion  of  Bavaria  with  Salzburg  be  given  to 
the  Emperor  Francis.' 

These  facts  doubtless  throw  some  light  upon  the  subse- 
quent policy  of  Bavaria  with  regard  to  the  Confederation  of 
the  Rhine. 

The  relations  of  Austria  with  France  having  again 
become  hostile  in  1798,  Max  Joseph  of  the  Zweibriicken- 
Birkenfeld  line  was  able,  in  spite  of  the  secret  clause  in 
the  Treaty  of  Campo  Formio,  to  enter  into  peaceable  pos- 
session of  the  Bavarian  inheritance  when  by  the  death  of 
Charles  Theodore  the  Sulzbach  line  became  extinct.  The 
Zweibriicken-Birkenfeld  house  had  already  given  three 
remarkable  kings  to  Sweden,  and  Bavaria  now  was  destined 
to  be  beholden  to  it  for  a  line  of  excellent  princes. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  an  important  turning-point. 
The  events  with  which  the  century  closed  introduced  a 
new  period  for  Germany  as  well  as  for  the  rest  of  mankind. 
Not  least  so  for  Bavaria.  The  accession  of  Maximilian  as 
Prince  Elector  of  the  Palatinate  and  Bavaria  is  the  mark 
which  divides  the  old  Bavaria  from  the  new.  By  no  gradual 
and  imperceptible  process  of  development  were  country  and 
people  transformed ;  it  was  with  sore  travail  that  the  new 
birth  was  ushered  in — that  the  old  ducal  stem  of  Bavaria 
assumed  the  shape  of  a  stately  kingdom,  three  times  as  large, 
of  a  nation  compacted  of  the  various  territories  of  old 
Bavaria,  Franconia,  Swabia,  and  the  Rhine  and  Upper 
Palatinates.  In  the  opinion  of  an  English  statesman  living 
in  Munich  in  1774, '  to  describe  the  condition  of  this  country 
it  is  necessary  to  go  back  two  generations  in  the  progress  of 
human  society.'  These  conditions  have  already  almost  faded 
from  the  memory  of  the  present  generation.  So  great  are 
the  changes  which  have  since  come  about. 

To  King  Max  Joseph  is  the  honour  due  of  having  raised 
Bavaria,  after  a  century  and  a  half  of  separation  and 
estrangement,  to  a  position  once  more  of  equality  and 
complete  fellowship  with  the  rest  of  the  German  States. 


ii  AND  ITS  PLACE  IN  GEKMAN   HISTOKY  53 

To  effect  this,  and  to  support  the  almost  intolerable  burdens 
which  general  warfare  and  ruin  and  foreign  pressure  had 
laid  upon  our  land,  a  complete  transformation  of  the  politi- 
cal and  social  organisation  of  the  nation  was  needful.  It 
was  necessary  almost  simultaneously  to  take  in  hand  reforms 
in  the  schools,  the  church,  the  civil  and  military  depart- 
ments, the  system  of  taxation,  feudal  customs  and  serfdom, 
the  administration  of  justice,  and  offices  of  the  state. 
That  in  these  things  many  mistakes,  and  some  of  them 
serious  ones,  should  for  many  years  be  committed,  was  in- 
evitable. The  king,  the  government,  and  the  people  had  to 
pass  through  years  of  trial  and  to  buy  their  experience  dearly. 
Nor  could  it  be  expected  that  a  state  built  up  of  incon- 
gruous elements,  still  under  the  pressure  of  a  foreign  yoke, 
and  with  a  standing  deficit,  should  at  once  rise  into  a 
healthy  political  existence  in  which  government  and  people 
should  co-operate  in  constitutional  harmony.  The  old 
estates  with  their  rights  had  already  been  crippled 
under  the  hands  of  Dukes  William  IV.,  Albert  V.,  and 
William  V.,  who  looked  upon  them  as  a  hindrance  in  the 
suppression  of  the  new  doctrines,  and  reduced  to  a  very 
small  amount  of  competence.  The  accession  of  so  many 
newly  acquired  provinces,  and  the  necessity  of  the  times, 
seemed  to  point  to  the  advisability  of  abolishing  all  local 
constitutions  and  privileges.  A  new  constitution  to  be 
granted  by  the  king  was  also  promised,  but,  under  the 
pressure  of  the  catastrophe  which  shortly  followed,  the 
project  fell  to  the  ground. 

Here  we  must  not  allow  our  estimate  of  a  king  like 
Maximilian  I.,  of  unsurpassed  nobility  and  benevolence, 
to  be  disturbed  by  the  remembrance  of  the  Confederation 
of  the  Ehine,  which  a  highly  gifted  historian  has  made 
the  occasion  for  the  bitterest  censures.  No  doubt  we  can 
find  therein,  partly  a  dark  fatality,  partly  a  grievous  fault, 
and  who  would  not,  if  he  could,  efface  July  12,  1806,  with 
his  blood  ?  But  how  many  must  share  the  blame  for  that 
fault,  and  how  far  back  must  it  be  traced?  The  Con- 


54  THE   HOUSE   OF  WITTELSBACH  n 

federation  of  the  Bhine  was  the  bitter  and  inevitable  fruit 
of  the  sins  and  errors  of  our  fathers ;  but  it  was  also  the 
immediate  result  of  the  envy  and  discord  which  subsisted 
between  the  two  great  powers  of  Germany,  who,  even  in  the 
face  of  a  common  enemy  and  despoiler,  would  neither  trust 
nor  help  one  another.  Bavaria,  so  long  as  the  existence 
of  the  moribund  empire  was  prolonged,  was  debarred  from 
creating  any  independent  line  of  conduct  for  herself;  for 
who,  within  sight  of  the  events  of  the  past  century,  could 
have  advised  the  king  to  ally  himself  with  Austria,  with  the 
certain  prospect  of  being  first  betrayed  by  her  ally,  and 
afterwards  crushed  by  Napoleon  ?  What  then  ?  Should 
the  king  abdicate,  fly,  abandon  his  people  to  see  them 
presently  constituted  into  a  second  Kingdom  of  Westphalia 
under  a  creature  of  Napoleon  or  one  of  his  marshals  ?  A 
public  opinion  which  might  serve  as  a  warning,  guide,  or 
encouragement  to  monarchs,  did  not  as  yet  exist  in 
Germany,  and  patriotism  was  accounted  narrow-mindedness 
by  the  leading  spirits  of  the  day.  Even  a  Baron  von 
Stein  could  give  his  approval  to  the  Treaty  of  Schonbrunn, 
by  which  Prussia  accepted  alliance  with  Napoleon  and 
received  the  equivocal  gift  of  Hanover. 

When  at  last  the  moment  arrived  for  casting  off  the 
foreign  yoke,  the  king  was  not  backward  in  seizing  the 
occasion — albeit  not  without  the  sacrifice,  by  the  Treaty  of 
Eieder,  of  a  considerable  district — of  taking  an  honourable 
part  with  the  Bavarian  army  in  the  war  for  emancipa- 
tion. King  and  people  found  themselves,  however,  in  the 
sorrowful  necessity  of  acquiescing  in  the  federal  constitution 
which  the  powers  of  Europe  had  designed  for  Germany 
with  the  express  purpose  of  maintaining  her  in  weakness 
and  disunion.  The  Confederation  contained  the  germs  of 
decay  from  the  first,  and  engendered  in  the  whole  nation  a 
profound  and  ever-growing  discontent,  manifested  some- 
times in  derision  and  sometimes  in  wrath,  which  hastened 
its  dissolution.  How  the  attempts  to  reform  it  and  to  give 
to  Germany  a  better  form  of  organisation  failed  or  were 


ii  AND  ITS   PLACE   IN  GERMAN  HISTORY  55 

rendered  fruitless,  and  how  this  led  to  the  events  of  1866 
and  1871,  is  still  fresh  in  our  minds. 

The  most  pressing  task  for  Bavaria  now  was  the  organi- 
sation of  her  internal  affairs.  Setting  Weimar  aside,  the 
King  of  Bavaria  was  the  foremost  among  the  German  princes 
to  whom  were  given  a  constitution  by  Art.  13  of  the  Act  of 
Confederation.  We  look  back  over  sixty  years  of  constitu- 
tional life  chequered  with  conflicts  and  changes ;  a  period  of 
political  education  for  government  and  people  during  which 
much  has  been  learnt  on  both  sides :  principally,  that  the 
highest  welfare  of  Bavaria  lies  in  a  strong  monarchy  raised 
above  party  bias,  and  that  the  preservation  of  the  rights  of 
the  crown  is  the  sacred  duty  of  all  from  the  ministers  down- 
wards. We  Bavarians  may  at  least  claim  this  testimony, 
that,  unlike  most  of  the  other  states  of  Germany,  we  have 
never  been  guilty  of  a  breach  of  the  constitution.  Every 
conflict,  however  sharp,  has  found  a  constitutional  solution. 

Honours  and  gratitude  are  due  to  the  house  of  Birken- 
feld  for  the  great  service  it  has  rendered  in  obliterat- 
ing the  feeling  of  estrangement  between  Bavaria  and  the 
rest  of  Germany,  so  carefully  fomented  in  former  times, 
and  exaggerated  by  the  presence  of  foreigners,  but  the 
revival  of  which  has  now  happily  been  rendered  impossible. 
Under  the  guidance  of  our  kings,  intellectual  barriers  one 
after  another  have  fallen.  By  word  and  deed,  by  precept 
and  example,  they  have  taught  Bavaria  to  feel  herself, 
through  the  constant  interchange  of  mutual  services,  a 
member  of  a  great  national  body,  an  integral  portion  of 
a  nation  to  whom  one  of  the  highest  missions  of  the  world 
is  committed. 

In  the  Diet  of  the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine  Ludwig  I. 
as  Crown  Prince  had  headed  the  opposition  against  the 
'  French  system '  as  it  was  called.  In  those  troublous 
times  he  had  already  conceived  the  project  of  assisting 
through  his  Walhalla  in  the  promotion  of  a  German 
national  sentiment.  When  under  his  patronage  the  School 
of  Art  at  Munich  rose  to  a  height  of  brilliancy  surpassing 


56  THE   HOUSE   OF  WITTELSBACH  n 

that  of  similar  institutions  in  Europe,  and  when  he  set 
before  the  artists  whom  he  had  attracted  to  his  capital,  the 
noblest  tasks  for  their  performance,  he  was  guided  by  the 
thought  that  Munich,  both  by  teaching  and  example,  should 
become  a  school  for  the  fine  arts  to  the  rest  of  Germany. 
King  Maximilian  II.  rightly  perceived  that  Bavaria  had 
a  special  mission  of  her  own,  for  the  advancement  of 
German  culture.  It  was  his  ardent  wish  to  lead  his  people 
in  preparing  the  way  for  and  promoting  the  welfare  of 
Bavaria  as  well  as  the  greatness  of  Germany.  An  historical 
commission  was  also  founded  with  this  aim,  and  its  labours 
restricted  to  the  field  of  German  history.  Had  his  life 
been  spared  it  had  been  the  intention  of  the  king  to  establish 
similar  bodies  for  the  investigation  of  other  branches  of 
science.  His  present  Majesty  has  shown  on  every  occasion 
his  intention  to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father  and 
grandfather  in  the  promotion  of  German  sentiments,  as,  for 
instance,  in  the  liberal  endowment  of  the  high  schools  of 
this  place  upon  the  occasion  of  the  Jubilee  Festival. 

Our  kings  of  the  Birkenfeld  line  have  excelled  many  of 
the  former  dukes  and  electors  by  the  assiduity  with  which 
they  have  sought  greatness  for  themselves  in  promoting 
the  mental  and  physical  well-being  of  their  people  and 
in  the  prosperity  of  the  state.  Consequently,  since  the 
beginning  of  the  century  we  find  prince  and  people  working 
harmoniously  together.  The  fusion  of  races  is  not  as  yet 
complete ;  human  power  cannot  control  the  forces  which 
oppose  it.  Thus  much  nevertheless  is  accomplished,  viz. 
that  king  and  country  are  united  in  the  conception  of  the 
Bavarian  people,  that  is  to  say,  the  benefits  which  they 
have  received  or  yet  desire  for  their  country  they  await  only 
at  the  hand  of  their  king. 

Harmony  betwixt  king  and  people,  the  mutual  confidence 
which  characterises  family  life,  reverence  for  the  majesty 
of  the  throne,  have  with  rare  exceptions  marked  the  history 
of  the  Wittelsbachs  and  their  subjects.  It  is  now  our  boast 
before  the  world,  and  we  trust  it  may  long  continue  so,  that 


AND   ITS   PLACE   IN   GERMAN   HISTORY  57 

we  approach  our  princes,  not  with  slavish  fear,  but  with 
feelings  of  love  and  veneration,  which  have  been  handed 
down  from  father  to  son  for  many  generations ;  that  we  look 
up  to  them,  and  trustfully  expect  the  best  from  them  in  spite 
of  some  sad  experiences ;  and  that  this  inherited  loyalty 
forms  a  mutual  bond  of  union  between  us  and  them.  With 
the  single  exception,  in  1208,  of  the  crime  committed  at  the 
commencement  of  our  dynasty,  and  not  on  Bavarian  soil, 
Bavaria  has  been  guiltless  of  the  death  of  any  of  her 
princes.  The  assassin  of  Ludwig  Kelheim  (1231)  was  a 
German,  not  a  Bavarian.  Our  annals  have  no  insurrections, 
no  dethronements,  no  conspiracies  or  treasonable  plots,  and 
no  political  executions  to  show ;  but  they  tell  of  abundant 
examples  of  self-denying  devotion,  of  sacrifices  of  wealth 
and  life,  and  of  loyalty  of  the  people  towards  their  princes 
which  the  most  grievous  sufferings  and  temptations  could 
not  shake.  We  yield  the  palm  in  this  respect  to  no  other 
German  race. 

It  is  the  yearly  custom  of  the  Academy  to  celebrate  the 
birthday  of  the  king  upon  this  day ;  and  to-day  the  day 
lias  become  to  us  a  double  festival.  The  foundation  of  our 
society  by  the  last  descendant  of  the  elder  line  of  the 
Wittelsbachs  excited  general  sympathy  and  approbation  in 
Germany  and  was  hailed  in  Bavaria  as  an  event  full  of 
promise.  Each  prince  of  the  house  of  Birkenfeld  has  since 
that  time  exerted  himself  to  improve  its  organisation,  to 
widen  the  field  of  its  labours,  and  to  contribute  to  its 
resources  ;  in  a  word,  to  prove  himself  a  vigilant  patron 
and  sympathising  benefactor.  With  grateful  homage  the 
Academy  to-day  presents  its  thanks  to  its  gracious  patron 
on  the  throne.  It  unites  at  the  same  time  with  the  entire 
nation  in  the  wish  that  God  may  bless  and  preserve  the 
house  of  Wittelsbach-Birkenfeld ;  may  it  flourish  and 
increase  in  inseparable  association  with  the  people  from 
whom  it  sprang ! 


58       THE  RELATION  OF  THE  CITY  OF  ROME 


III 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE   CITY  OF  ROME   TO 
GEEMANY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  l 

Two  prerogatives,  otherwise  denied  to  the  works  of  man, 
were  ascribed  by  the  ancient  Eomans  to  their  city: 
permanence  and  the  supremacy  of  the  world.  Eome  is 
the  urbs  ceterna,  Eome  is  the  Queen  of  the  Universe,  was 
re-echoed  from  heathen  into  Christian  times.  Not  only  in 
the  eyes  of  her  inhabitants  was  Eome  a  divinity ;  other 
cities  raised  her  worship  above  that  of  their  own  tutelary 
gods ;  in  every  province  of  the  empire  she  had  her  temples 
and  her  priests. 

But  a  complete  revolution  took  place  with  the  triumph 
of  Christianity.  The  confident  hopes  of  permanence  gave 
way  to  a  conviction  of  a  terrible  fate  and  of  a  sudden 
destruction  destined  for  the  Mistress  of  the  World.  In  one 
day — so  the  Christians  believed — the  doom  of  requital 
would  annihilate  the  great  Babylon,  the  city  upon  the 
seven  hills  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the  saints.  That  the 
catastrophe  foretold  in  the  Apocalypse  of  John  would  be 
literally  fulfilled — although  perhaps  not  until  a  much  later 
time  close  to  the  end  of  the  world — was  the  interpretation 
to  which  most  of  the  ecclesiastical  commentators  firmly 
adhered. 

From  the  commencement  of  the  fifth  century,  with 
the  confusion  brought  about  by  the  barbarian  invasion 
and  the  dissolution  of  the  Western  Empire,  Eome  had 

1  Address  delivered  at  the  public  sitting  of  the  Academy  of  Science  in 
Munich,  July  29,  1882,  printed  here  for  the  first  time. 


in  TO   GERMANY   IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES  59 

entered  upon  a  long  period  of  suffering  and  depopulation. 
The  city,  sacked  by  Alaric's  Ostrogoths,  was  again  not  long 
afterwards  plundered  by  the  still  more  ferocious  Vandals 
who  crossed  from  Africa.  It  was  conquered  by  the  Suevi 
under  Eicimer,  and  during  the  death-struggle  of  the  Visi- 
goths was  besieged  and  occupied  several  times  alternately 
by  that  people  and  by  the  Byzantine  forces.  In  the  year 
543  the  population  had  been  so  reduced  that  not  more  than 
500  inhabitants,  it  was  said,  remained  within  the  deserted 
walls.  Yet  it  still  possessed  sufficient  powers  of  attraction 
for  a  rapid  increase  in  numbers  under  the  protecting  hand 
of  the  papacy,  which,  since  the  time  of  Gregory  the  Great, 
had  been  steadily  gathering  strength.  It  became  once 
more  an  imperial  city,  belonging  to  the  Eastern  Empire 
but  dependent  immediately  upon  the  Exarchate  of  Eavenna, 
and  principally  occupied  in  warding  off  the  threatening  en- 
croachments of  the  Lombard  power. 

But  Eome  was,  moreover,  inspired  with  the  longing  to 
cast  off  the  Byzantine  sovereignty.  Hatred  of  the  Lom- 
bards and  of  the  iconoclast  Greek  Emperors,  led  to  an 
alliance  with  the  Frankish  Empire.  Ties  of  mutual  interest 
contributed  to  strengthen  the  bond.  The  popes  prudently 
helped  to  bring  about  the  deposition  of  the  last  of  the 
Merovingians  and  the  erection  of  a  new  dynasty,  and  Eome 
conferred  upon  Pepin  the  title  of  Patrician  or  Protector  of 
the  City.  The  Anglo-Saxon  Winfrid  (Boniface),  who 
became  the  apostle  of  the  Germans  and  the  reformer  of  the 
Frankish  Church,  was  at  that  moment  extending  his  wonder- 
ful influence  throughout  the  Frankish  territories.  He  gave 
to  the  Germans,  what  in  their  disjointed  condition  had 
been  wanting  to  them  before,  a  sense  of  common  nationality 
and  an  ecclesiastical  organisation;  they  became  more 
definitely  included  in  the  political  jurisdiction  of  the 
Frankish  Empire,  and  in  the  many-membered  bodies  of 
Western  Christendom  of  which  Eome  was  becoming  the 
centre. 

What  Pepin  and  Winfrid  had  begun,  Charles  the  Great 


60       THE  RELATION  OF  THE  CITY  OF  ROME        m 

completed.  Whilst  Boniface  did  all  that  was  possible  to 
train  the  youthful  Church  of  Germany  into  entire  submis- 
sion to  Kome,  and  to  impress  upon  her  Eoman  forms  and 
ordinances,  Charles  pursued  the  same  end  throughout  the 
whole  extent  of  his  realm.  But  he  was  resolved  that  at 
least  within  this  realm  he  would  himself  be  the  leader  and 
guardian  of  the  church — would,  as  the  bishops  demanded 
and  expected  of  him,  govern  her  internally  whilst  pro- 
tecting and  extending  her  externally.  Kome,  which  had 
called  and  crowned  him  to  be  the  first  emperor  of  the 
resuscitated  Western  Empire,  had  now  become  the  first 
city  of  his  dominions  and  herself  subject  to  his  authority. 

Endless  conjectures  may  be  hazarded  as  to  the  diffe- 
rent courses  history  might  have  taken,  and  what  a  different 
form  the  destiny  of  Germany  would  have  assumed,  if 
that  older  branch,  the  Eastern  Church  of  the  Greek  tongue, 
which  in  many  respects  had  remained  more  faithful  to  the 
organisation  and  customs  of  primitive  Christianity,  had 
become  the  mother  of  the  German  Church.  I  shall 
presently  have  occasion  to  notice  the  contrast  between  the 
Eoman  and  Greek  use. 

In  the  acclamations  with  which  the  Eomans  greeted 
Charles  in  the  church  at  his  coronation,  they  believed 
themselves  to  be  exercising  an  ancient  and  unforfeited 
right  of  election,  and  this  idea  seems  actually  to  have 
been  present  to  the  mind  of  Charles  himself  when  he  dated 
the  preamble  of  the  Capitularies  for  Italy  from  the  first 
year  of  his  consulate.  It  was  upon  this  that  Charles 
and  his  successors  founded  their  hereditary  right.  Neither 
Ludwig,  Charles's  son,  nor  Lothar,  nor  Ludwig  II.  was 
elected  or  crowned  at  Eome,  but  upon  the  question  of  his 
right  to  the  title  of  Emperor,  Ludwig  II.  declares  to  the 
Byzantine  Emperor,  '  I  received  my  title  and  dignity 
from  the  Eomans  ;  they  were  theirs  from  the  first.'  How- 
ever, four  years  later  an  occurrence  took  place  decisive 
in  its  effect  upon  the  centuries  to  come,  and  of  the 
highest  significance  to  Germany.  At  the  invitation  of 


TO  GERMANY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES        61 

Pope  John  VIII.  the  west-Frankish  King,  Charles  the  Bald, 
went  to  Borne,  where,  setting  aside  the  rightful  heir,  his 
uncle  Ludwig,  and  bribing  the  Romans  with  large  presents, 
he  received  the  imperial  crown  from  the  pope,  who  declared 
himself  to  be  acting  in  the  matter  under  the  inspiration  of 
Heaven.  Thus  the  disposal  of  the  empire  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  pope,  and  future  emperors  found  themselves 
under  the  necessity  of  undertaking  the  journey  to  Eome  in 
order  to  be  anointed  and  crowned  by  the  pope,  who  could 
grant  or  refuse  the  service.  Thereon  hung  the  fate  of 
Germany. 

After  the  death  of  Arnulf,  the  first  sovereign  of  purely 
German  race  who  wore  the  imperial  crown,  Rome  and  the 
papacy  entered  upon  a  period  of  shameful  degradation, 
during  which  the  papal  chair  was  disgraced  by  a  succession 
of  criminals  and  the  favourites  of  designing  women,  whose 
elevation  was  not  unfrequently  brought  about  by  the  murder 
of  their  predecessors.  It  is  a  question  how  far  the  pro- 
ceedings in  Rome  during  those  sixty  years  from  900  to  960 
were  known  at  the  time  in  Germany.  German  sources 
of  information,  even  the  Chronicles,  are  silent  as  to  the 
accession  of  one  vicious  pope  after  another,  and  as  to  the 
fact  that  Rome  had  become  a  centre  of  murder  and  vice 
where  there  was  no  longer  any  question  of  conducting  the 
succession  to  the  papal  chair  in  the  manner  prescribed  by 
the  teaching  of  the  church.  Records  relative  to  any  action 
of  these  popes  with  regard  to  Germany  are  few.  The 
German  Church  stood  alone  at  that  period,  and  only  in 
exceptional  instances  applied  to  the  pope  for  the  bestowal  or 
confirmation  of  certain  privileges.  Papal  records  referring 
to  Germany  only  begin  to  be  less  scanty  with  Agapetus  II. 
after  947. 

Otto  the  Great  undertook  to  raise  Rome  and  the 
Roman  Church  out  of  their  degradation.  The  union  of 
the  imperial  dignity  with  the  German  Kingdom  which 
began  with  him,  a  union  destined  to  last  for  800  years, 
brought  the  German  nation  and  church  into  still  closer 


62       THE  RELATION  OF  THE  CITY  OF  EOME        m 

connection  with  the  papacy.  But  it  was  of  evil  portent 
that  John  XII.,  who  officiated  at  Otto's  coronation,  was 
so  utterly  worthless  that  the  emperor  himself  was  obliged 
to  depose  him  shortly  afterwards. 

Germany  was  now  more  firmly  linked  to  Eome  than 
it   had  been   under  Pepin  and  Charles  the  Great.     The 
empire,  during  the  whole  of  the  middle  ages,  possessed 
neither  capital  nor  imperial  residence  to  the  north  of  the 
Alps ;  Eome  alone  could  be  fitly  called  the  metropolis  of 
the  Holy  Koman  Empire  of  the  German  people.     Yet  in 
Eome  the  emperor  had  no  palace,  and  when  he  sojourned 
there  it  was  necessarily  as  the  guest  of  the  pope  or  of 
some  great  noble,  whilst  entrance  into  the  city  was  accorded 
to  him  only  after  lengthened  parleys,  backed  by  the  presence 
of  a  large  armed  force.     Every  German  felt  himself  to  be 
looked   upon   with  suspicion   as   an  unwelcome   stranger. 
At  a  later  period,  when  the  Curia   sought  to  strengthen 
itself  by  the  election  of  foreign,  and  especially  of  French, 
cardinals,  and  by  closer  alliance  with  France,  the  cardinal's 
hat  was  scarcely  ever  bestowed  upon  a  native  of  Germany. 
From   the   time   of  the   Concordat   of   Worms   until   the 
end  of  the  middle  ages,  no  German  attained  to  any  post 
of  eminence   at   the   Eoman  court.     In  the  seventeenth 
century  a  proverb  was  still  current  in  Eome  to  the  effect 
that  a  German  cardinal  was  a  phenomenon  as  rare  as  a 
white  raven. 

Yet  the  German  Church  excelled  not  only  the  French 
but  all  other  churches  in  submissiveness  to  Eome.  At 
the  Synod  of  Trebur  in  895,  German  bishops  had  already 
declared,  'The  Eoman  chair  is  our  master  in  church 
discipline,  therefore  let  us  patiently  endure  the  yoke  laid 
upon  us,  although  it  be  scarcely  tolerable.'  How  often 
later  on  did  Eome  quote  these  words  to  their  successors, 
and  give  a  wider  interpretation  to  the  promise  of  sub- 
mission than  those  bishops — albeit  even  then  dominated 
by  the  false  Decretals  of  Isidore — had  any  concep- 
tion of. 


HI  TO   GERMANY  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES  63 

It  had  not  been  within  the  power  of  the  Emperor 
Otto  I.  to  establish  a  permanent  reformation  in  Borne. 
There  was  there  an  utter  lack  of  men  who  could  have  been 
the  supporters  and  guarantees  of  reform.  The  previous 
scandalous  scenes  were  renewed,  and  a  slight  amelioration  of 
things  under  the  Popes  Gregory  V.  and  Silvester  II.,  whom 
Otto  III.  placed  on  the  papal  throne,  was  but  transitory. 
When  the  papal  chair  came  into  the  power  of  the  Counts 
of  Tusculum,  the  old  anarchy  and  shameless  corruption 
again  prevailed.  For  the  third  time  it  became  necessary 
for  an  emperor,  in  this  instance  Henry  III.,  to  constitute 
himself  the  preserver  and  purifier  of  the  papacy,  first  at 
Sutri  and  afterwards  at  Home.  At  that  period  the  papal 
chair  was  occupied  within  twelve  years  by  five  German 
popes,  since  amongst  the  Koman  clergy  no  fitting  candidate 
could  be  found.  These  popes,  with  one  exception,  died 
almost  immediately,  poisoned  by  the  unhealthy  atmosphere 
of  Eome ;  one  only,  Leo  IX.,  under  Hildebrand's  guidance, 
left  any  lasting  trace  of  his  pontificate,  and  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  that  Gregorian  system  which  resulted  in  papal 
supremacy. 

It  is  significant  that,  although  the  wretched  condition 
of  Eome,  both  of  the  city  and  of  the  church,  and  its 
palpable  causes,  were  manifest  to  the  Gregorian  party, 
yet  they  should  even  as  early  as  1057  have  sought  to 
throw  the  whole  blame  upon  the  Germans  and  their 
emperor.  According  to  Cardinal  Humbert,  it  was  the 
action  of  the  Ottos  and  their  successors,  coupled  with  the 
cowardice  and  stupidity  of  former  popes,  that  had  brought 
misery  and  degradation  upon  the  church.  Thus  the  very 
men  who  had  raised  the  papacy  out  of  the  lowest  depths, 
and  had  afforded  it  strength  and  protection,  were  held  up 
to  reprobation  as  foes  and  despoilers.  At  any  rate  the 
Gregorian  party  was  not  scrupulous  in  taking  revenge  for 
the  encroachments  of  which  it  complained,  for  through  its 
machinations  Germany  was  laid  waste  by  nearly  fifty 
years  of  civil  war. 


64  THE   RELATION   OF   THE   CITY  OF  ROME  m 

Let  us  now  consider  more  closely  how  the  influence 
of  Kome  made  itself  felt  throughout  Germany,  and  what 
results  this  produced. 

The  term  '  Roman  Catholic  Church '  is  expressive  of 
a  very  real  distinction ;  it  denotes  that,  besides  the  bond 
of  communion  and  unity  of  doctrine,  Rome  has  her  own 
traditions,  her  ritual  and  use,  whilst  other  portions  of 
the  universal  church,  the  Grseco-Byzantine,  the  African, 
the  Hispano- Gothic,  each  in  the  course  of  equally  free 
development,  have  created  a  diversity  of  forms.  Such 
could  not  be  the  case  in  Germany,  since  the  church  of  that 
nation  had  been  strictly  bound  to  the  Roman  ritual  from 
the  beginning. 

Rome  was  assuming  more  and  more  the  character  of 
a  sacerdotal  city ;  the  old  wealthy  patrician  families  had 
either  disappeared  or  migrated  to  Constantinople  ;  and  as 
the  seat  of  government  was  either  at  Constantinople  or 
Ravenna,  there  was  no  class  of  state  officials  in  Rome. 
But  the  clergy  had  become  rich  upon  the  revenues  of  the 
vast  possessions  of  St.  Peter,  which  included  lands  in  all 
parts  of  Italy  continually  increasing  in  number  and  extent. 
Surrounded  by  the  waste  or  hardly  cultivable  lands  of  the 
Campagna,  without  manufactures,  trade,  or  industry  of 
their  own,  the  people  of  Rome  were  induced  to  rely  upon 
exactions  levied  upon  the  foreigner,  and  upon  profits 
derived  from  ecclesiastical  institutions,  the  expenditure  of 
the  popes,  and  the  receipts  of  the  Curia.  Hence  the  un- 
varying sameness  in  the  political  history  of  Rome  from  the 
fifth  to  the  fifteenth  century.  At  no  period  can  the  gradual 
development  of  organised  civil  life  be  discerned,  nothing  is 
visible  but  the  wearisome  spectacle  of  perpetually  recur- 
ring scenes  of  uproar  and  revolution.  The  Romans  strove 
for  freedom,  and  long  retained  the  right  of  self-govern- 
ment, until  Boniface  IX.  by  means  of  repeated  executions 
made  himself  absolute  master  of  the  city.  Their  seething 
tumults  and  republican  risings  most  frequently  resulted 
in  nothing  but  a  change  of  masters.  The  emperor  could 


in  TO    GERMANY    IN    T1IK    MIDDLE   AGES  65 

rule  only  so  long  as  he  was  personally  present.  Hence  the 
possession  of  power  long  oscillated  between  the  priesthood 
and  the  warlike  nobility ;  there  was,  properly  speaking, 
no  middle  class,  and  always  too  large  a  proletariat.  Of  all 
the  popular  leaders,  Arnold  of  Brescia  was  the  wisest  and 
most  disinterested  ;  but  even  his  ideas  of  reform,  like  those 
of  Cola  di  Eienzi,  were  partly  impracticable,  partly  too 
grandiloquent  and  fantastic. 

No  city  has  such  a  history  as  that  of  Kome  from  the 
seventh  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century :  constant 
tumults,  bitter  party  strife,  violent  changes  in  the  constitu- 
tion ;  deposition,  banishment,  assassination  of  those  in 
power ;  quarrels  of  the  powerful  families  among  them- 
selves, with  the  people,  or  with  the  priesthood ;  now  siding 
with  the  emperor  against  the  pope,  now  with  the  clergy 
and  pope  against  the  emperor.  If  for  a  moment  internal 
discord  was  lulled,  war  was  sure  to  burst  out  again  with 
the  neighbouring  cities,  Tusculum,  Yiterbo,  or  Palestrina. 
Turbulent,  quarrelsome,  covetous,  ever  ready  to  fly  to  arms, 
to  engage  in  street  combats,  to  besiege  the  strongholds  of 
the  wealthy,  to  plunder  the  houses  of  their  opponents,  and 
often  even  the  churches — such  was  the  herd  of  human 
beings  which  called  itself  the  Koman  people. 

The  red  thread,  however,  which  runs  through  the  whole 
tangle,  is  the  attitude  of  the  people  and  the  priesthood  to 
one  another. 

The  history  of  the  city  of  Eome  may  be  said  chiefly  to 
be  a  record  of  the  continual  struggles  of  the  secular  world 
against  priestly  government.  The  struggle  is  carried  on 
now  openly,  now  secretly ;  it  assumes  various  forms ;  but  of 
genuine  peace,  of  harmonious  co-operation,  there  is  scarely 
an  interlude ;  if  a  pause  occurs,  it  is  but  a  temporary  truce 
or  a  transient  alliance  against  a  common  foe.  The  laity 
generally  had  the  worst  of  it,  either  when  the  whole  clerical 
body,  firmly  organised  under  its  spiritual  head,  was  arrayed 
against  it,  or  when  the  pope  found  support  in  the  emperor 
or  the  Italian  princes.  But  it  was  frequently  victorious 


66  THE   RELATION   OF   THE    CITY   OF   ROME  m 

upon  occasions  when  the  clergy  were  divided  amongst 
themselves,  or  when  the  interests  of  the  lower  ecclesiastical 
orders  coincided  with  that  of  the  laity. 

The  effects  of  this  state  of  things  show  themselves  even 
in  the  early  times  of  Koman  Christianity. 

Dissensions  in  the  Eoman  community  had  begun  even 
in  the  third  century,  arising  in  the  first  instance  out  of 
controversies  on  doctrine  or  discipline.  Hippolytus  was  set 
up  as  antipope  against  Callistus,  and  Novatian  soon  after- 
wards against  Cornelius.  Directly  after  the  persecution 
under  Diocletian,  the  severity  of  Marcellus  aroused  a  dis- 
pute which  led  to  a  tumult  and  to  bloodshed  in  the  streets, 
and  resulted  in  the  banishment  of  the  pope  from  Rome. 
During  the  distractions  arising  out  of  the  Arian  controversy 
we  find  two  hostile  Roman  bishops,  Felix  and  Liberius,  in 
arms  against  each  other.  The  populace  took  part  with  one, 
the  clergy  with  the  other.  The  death  of  Liberius  was  the 
provocation  of  a  fresh  schism;  fighting  went  on  in  the 
streets  and  churches  with  such  fury  that  in  a  single  day 
137  bodies  of  murdered  persons  were  found  in  one  of  the 
basilicas.  Some  years  later,  in  419,  the  disputed  election 
of  Eulalius  and  Boniface  again  brought  on  the  customary 
acts  of  tumult  and  violence,  and  the  Emperor  Honorius 
was  obliged  to  interfere.  Thus  things  went  on  throughout 
the  whole  of  the  middle  ages  ;  twenty-four  such  papal  wars 
or  schisms  may  be  enumerated  during  that  period,  of 
which  only  a  few  originated  in  disputes  between  the  empire 
and  the  papacy.  The  schism  which  took  place  under 
Urban  VI.  lasted  seventy  years,  and  rent  the  whole  of 
Christendom.  The  question  which  of  the  two  rivals  was 
the  rightful  pope  was  generally  left  in  uncertainty. 

By  far  the  greater  number  of  these  schisms  were  the 
fruit  of  the  factious  spirit  of  the  Romans.  We  find  in 
Rome  and  nowhere  else  in  the  world  at  that  time  a  state  of 
tension  and  warfare  between  clergy  and  laity,  which  had 
lasted  for  centuries  and  had  produced  the  greatest  vicissi- 
tudes of  fortune. 


in  TO    GERMANY   IN    THE   MIDDLE   AGES  67 

The  clergy  is  a  many-headed,  hierarchical  body,  com- 
posed of  many  grades  and  organised,  whose  theory  of 
government  is  absolute  monarchy;  it  has  large  revenues  at 
its  disposal,  derived  from  the  many  donations  to  St.  Peter. 
Some  part  of  the  laity,  also,  which  is  dependent  on  the 
clergy,  is  almost  invariably  upon  its  side.  Meanwhile  the 
gulf  between  the  priesthood  and  the  people  becomes  ever 
wider  and  deeper.  Even  the  earliest  fictions  which  found 
their  way  into  the  papal  chronicles  give  evidence  to  the 
endeavour  to  exclude  the  laity  from  interfering  with  matters 
reserved  for  consecrated  hands.  It  was  decreed  that  the 
heads  of  the  church  might  not  permit  themselves  to  be 
served  by  laymen.  Not  a  bell-rope,  not  a  church-door  key, 
says  Cardinal  Humbert,  should  be  touched  by  a  layman  ; 
and  Gregory  VII.  affirms  that  even  an  exorcist  in  the 
church  stood  higher  than  a  layman,  even  than  the  monarch 
himself,  since  as  an  imperator  of  the  spiritual  world  he 
subdued  demons. 

Boniface  VIII.  finally  went  so  far  as  to  issue  a  bull  affirm- 
ing that  the  laity  had  always  fostered  a  hatred  for  the 
church,  to  which  even  antiquity  bore  evidence.  This  state- 
ment became  henceforth  an  axiom  of  canon  law,  and  a 
basis  on  which  to  regulate  the  relations  between  clergy  and 
laity,  church  and  state. 

This  rigorous  separation  between  clergy  and  laity, 
added  to  the  unceasing  antagonism  dating  from  the  fifth 
century  between  the  two  classes  in  Koine,  inevitably  pro- 
duced a  marked  effect  upon  ecclesiastical  life.  The  esprit 
de  corps  with  its  good  and  evil  characteristics  became  more 
strongly  and  consciously  developed  amongst  the  clergy 
of  that  place  than  elsewhere.  Whereas  in  earlier  times 
even  the  clergy  of  Eome  might  frequently  split  into  hostile 
parties,  or  take  sides  amongst  the  factions  of  the  people  or 
nobles,  we  see  nothing  of  the  kind  occurring  after  the 
dispute  upon  investitures ;  even  the  violent  contests  of 
Guelph  and  Ghibelline,  which  rent  the  whole  of  Italy  and 
threw  the  families  of  the  nobles  into  a  permanent  state  of 

F    2 


68  THE   RELATION   OF  THE    CITY   OF  ROME  m 

collision,  only  transiently  disturbed  the  ecclesiastical  circles 
of  Rome.  With  the  sentiment  of  unity  there  grew  up 
amongst  the  clergy  the  desire  and  the  need  to  govern.  No 
choice,  in  fact,  was  left  them.  Rome  during  the  middle  ages 
never  experienced  the  benefit  of  a  stable  government 
founded  upon  long  tradition  and  secured  by  hereditary 
succession  ;  the  clergy  must  either  rule  the  laity  or  be  forced 
to  obey  and  serve  them.  Their  thoughts  and  aspirations 
were  naturally  directed  towards  domination,  though  in 
securing  it  they  succeeded  better  for  several  centuries  in 
Germany  than  in  their  own  city. 

When  the  popes  of  the  middle  ages  affirmed,  in  direct 
contradiction  to  the  words  of  the  Bible,  that  whereas  the 
spiritual  power  was  from  God,  the  secular  power  was  from 
the  Devil,  or,  as  Innocent  III.  expressed  it,  the  kingdoms  of 
the  world  were  produced  by  the  tyranny  of  man,  they  spoke 
under  the  impression  of  local  circumstances  by  which  they 
were  surrounded  and  threatened.  They  had  the  barbarous 
violence  and  rude  despotism  of  the  imperial  and  patrician 
families  of  Rome  and  its  neighbourhood  before  their  eyes. 
It  has  been  a  point  too  little  heeded,  that  the  popes  and 
their  counsellors  and  officials  possessed  as  a  rule  none  of 
the  exact  acquaintance  with  distant  nations  and  the  eccle- 
siastical state  of  other  countries  which  is  only  to  be  won 
by  long  personal  study — that,  on  the  contrary,  they  were 
governed  by  impressions  gathered  from  the  daily  events  of 
Roman  society.  To  them  the  city  of  Rome  was  a  micro- 
cosm, whose  air  they  breathed,  whose  images  they  beheld, 
and  whose  social  and  intellectual  atmosphere  became  for 
them  the  standard  by  which  to  test  the  motives  and 
requirements  of  the  rest  of  the  world. 

To  the  Germans,  Rome  was  simultaneously  an  object  of 
desire  and  of  fear,  pre-eminently  attractive  on  the  one 
hand,  repulsive  and  odious  on  the  other.  The  climate  was 
deadly  to  them :  many  had  journeyed  to  Rome  and  had 
never  returned  ;  whole  armies  had  been  carried  off  by  sick- 
ness. Add  to  this  the  reputation  of  the  Romans  as  the 


TO   GERMANY   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES  69 

most  covetous  people  in  the  world,  and  the  dread  of  being 
caught  in  the  snares  of  the  Roman  money-brokers,  or  at 
best  of  returning  home  laden  with  debt.  Nevertheless  the 
longing  to  behold  the  sacred  relics,  to  worship  before  them 
and  become  partakers  of  the  treasures  of  grace  to  be  thus 
secured,  outweighed  with  numbers  the  drawbacks  of  the 
journey.  The  most  powerful  attraction  in  early  times  had 
been  the  grave  of  the  two  Apostles  (limina  Apostolorum)  ; 
crowds  of  pilgrims  went  to  Rome  that  they  might  offer  up 
their  prayers  before  it.  But  objects  of  veneration  soon  in- 
creased ;  so  many  thousands  of  Christians  had  died  for  the 
witness  of  the  faith  in  Rome  that  the  soil  of  the  city  had  been 
saturated  down  to  the  very  sewers  by  the  blood  of  martyrs, 
and  at  every  step  the  pilgrim  trod  upon  hallowed  ground. 
The  number  and  costliness  of  the  relics  had  also  been  greatly 
augmented,  particularly  since  the  Crusades.  Rome  had 
become  a  second  Jerusalem;  almost  every  object  mentioned 
in  the  Gospels  that  the  Lord  or  His  mother  had  touched  or 
worn  was  there  to  be  found — vessels,  utensils,  stones, 
garments,  the  instruments  of  His  Passion,  and  even,  in 
strange  contradiction  with  dogmatic  truth,  portions  of  His 
body.  Of  the  mother  of  Jesus  Rome  possessed  everything 
which  the  worshipper  of  Mary  could  desire.  Each  nation 
had  its  guides  who  pointed  out  these  treasures  and  pro- 
claimed the  indulgences  for  a  thousand  years  attached  to 
them  ;  these  guides  held  the  place  of  the  Roman  publica- 
tions of  the  Mirabilia  and  Graphia.  One  has  only  to  read 
the  conclusion  of  the  description  of  Rome  by  the  merchant 
prince  of  Nuremberg,  Nicholas  Muffel,  to  understand  the 
magnetic  power  exercised  by  Rome  at  that  period.  To  the 
German  the  lot  of  the  Romans  seemed  enviable  and  highly 
favoured ;  even  should  he  die  there  he  was  sure  of  a  grave 
amongst  the  holy  martyrs,  and  of  immediate  participation 
in  the  joys  of  Heaven  ! 

If  we  turn  to  consider  the  special  effect  upon  religion 
and    worship   in   Germany   produced  by  the  influence  of 


I 

70       THE  RELATION  OF  THE  CITY  OF  HOME        m 

Eome,  we  shall  speedily  recognise  features  strongly  sugges- 
tive of  old  paganism. 

Christians  held  it  to  be  right  and  good  that  heathen 
customs  and  religious  rites  should  be  retained  and  chris- 
tianised ;  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  approved  and  recom- 
mended it.  A  work  by  Marangoni,  composed  and  sanctioned 
in  Eome,  pointed  out  a  host  of  adaptations  of  that  kind. 
It  lies  also  in  the  nature  of  religious  symbolism  that,  repre- 
senting as  it  does  general  ideas  and  sentiments,  it  may 
equally  be  turned  to  the  service  of  Christianity  or  paganism. 
Paganism  in  Eome  was  deeply  rooted,  and  offered  a  tough 
resistance.  At  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  the  popes  were 
still  wrestling  with  some  of  the  surviving  forms  of  pagan 
worship — the  Lupercalia  for  instance.  Christianity  in  Eome 
remained  strongly  impregnated  with  the  genuine  Latin  and 
Etruscan  belief  in  the  magic  power  of  forms  and  ceremonies. 
When  popes  caused  the  fields  to  be  strewn  with  bits  of 
consecrated  tapers  as  a  protection  against  fieldmice  and 
caterpillars,  and  sprinkled  the  walls  of  the  city  with  holy 
water  to  ward  off  the  sudden  attacks  of  her  enemies,  we 
recognise  the  survival  of  the  old  Eoman  beliefs. 

The  intellectual  barbarism,  the  absence  of  all  refinement 
of  taste,  which  meets  us  in  all  the  monuments  of  Eome  of  the 
middle  ages,  accounts  for  much.  Every  great  city  is  wont  to 
collect,  at  any  rate  from  the  country  in  the  midst  of  which 
it  lies,  the  materials  for  intellectual  and  scientific  develop- 
ment, and  to  work  them  up,  in  order  to  pour  forth  to  all 
both  near  and  far  the  treasures  thus  won  and  enhanced  in 
her  keeping.  But  this  does  not  apply  to  Eome ;  in  this 
respect,  as  in  many  others,  the  history  of  the  town  is  unique. 
For  a  thousand  years  after  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire, 
Eome  possessed  no  school  of  importance,  nor  any  seat  of 
learning  whose  influence  was  widely  spread.  A  famous 
singing  school  existed,  and  that  was  all.  Nor  did  Eome 
during  the  middle  ages  produce  any  literature  of  the  higher 
sort,  if  we  except  the  works  of  Gregory  the  Great,  which 
were  widely  diffused,  and  formed  the  favourite  study  of  the 


TO   (rEHMAXY   IX   THE   MIDDLE   AGES  71 

cloister.     The  few  historical  works  are  principally  produc- 
tions compiled  for  some  particular  purpose. 

Nothing  existed  in  Eome  worthy  of  the  name  of  theology 
until  the  time  of  the  later  scholasticism,  when  a  theologian, 
the  subsequent  mayister  palatii,  was  appointed  to  the  papal 
court.  Pope  Agathos  even  as  early  as  the  year  680  had 
caused  it  to  he  announced  at  the  council  in  Constantinople 
that,  owing  to  the  prevailing  poverty,  obliging  all  to  live  by 
the  labour  of  their  hands,  men  of  theological  learning  were 
not  to  be  found  either  in  Eome  or  Italy.  No  improvement 
was  shown  during  the  next  three  centuries,  and  when  in 
998  Gerbert  taunted  the  Eomans  with  their  ignorance,  the 
legate  Leo  could  only  reply  that  Peter  himself  had  been 
an  unlearned  fisherman.  The  Germans  could  indeed  Buy 
MSS.  in  Eome,  but  scientific  culture  and  theological  learn- 
ing could  only  be  received  from  England  and  France. 

The  exorcising  of  evil  spirits  was  made  an  act  of  eccle- 
siastical authority  first  in  Eome,  and  as  early  as  the  third 
century  an  order  of  Exorcists  was  added  to  the  ranks  of  the 
clergy.  A  further  step  was  soon  afterwards  taken,  and  a 
law  made  that  any  one  wishing  to  dedicate  himself  to  the 
priestly  office  must  first  have  received  ordination  as  an 
exorcist,  and  have  performed  for  a  time  the  duties  of  that 
employment.  This  was  one  of  the  fictions  which,  to  lend 
the  matter  a  semblance  of  antiquity,  were  inserted  in  the 
Papal  Chronicle.  The  Eastern  Church  remained  a  stranger 
to  this  rule,  and  reckons  no  such  order  amongst  her  clergy. 
But  in  the  West  all  the  nations  and  churches  which  were 
dependent  upon  Eome  were  obliged  to  accept,  and  have 
retained  to  the  present  day,  an  institution,  the  consequences 
of  which  may  be  measured  by  the  fact  that,  throughout 
the  middle  ages,  mental  derangements  of  all  kinds  were 
considered  and  treated  as  demoniacal  possession,  and  the 
cure  of  the  sufferer  entrusted,  not  to  the  physician,  but  to 
the  exorcist. 

The  entire  system  of  trial  by  ordeal  was  partly  prompted, 
partly  fostered  and  sanctioned,  by  the  practice  introduced 


72  THE   RELATION   OF   THE   CITY   OF   ROME  in 

into  Eome  in  the  sixth  century  of  causing  persons  accused 
of  crime  to  testify  their  innocence  by  an  oath  before  the 
sacred  relics  or  the  graves  of  the  martyrs  ;  or,  in  the  case 
of  priests,  by  receiving  the  Holy  Eucharist.  Pope  Euge- 
nius  II.  even  instituted  trial  by  water  :  several  councils  sanc- 
tioned or  decreed  ordeals  of  a  like  description  ;  churches 
and  monasteries  caused  claims  to  be  decided  by  single 
combat,  the  issue  of  which  was  likewise  reckoned  to  depend 
upon  divine  judgment.  Such  proceedings  were  surrounded 
by  all  the  pomp  of  religious  ceremonies.  In  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries,  however,  we  find  the  popes  expressing 
disapprobation  of  some  of  the  means  employed  in  the  trial 
by  ordeal. 

A  people  like  the  populace  of  Kome,  perpetually 
struggling  and  fighting  to  free  itself  from  sacerdotal  rule, 
was  not  to  be  treated  according  to  the  canons  of  the  older 
and  purer  church.  These  had  taken  for  granted  the  har- 
monious relations  between  clergy  and  laity,  and  could 
be  applied  with  success  only  so  long  as  such  harmony 
subsisted. 

Under  the  conditions  of  constant  anarchy  which  pre- 
vailed in  Rome,  it  was  found  impossible  to  keep  in  force 
the  ancient  system  of  penance.  By  heightening  the  severity 
of  so  effectual  a  means  of  government,  the  Roman  priest- 
hood strove  to  secure  to  themselves  the  right  of  criminal 
jurisdiction,  proof  of  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  directions 
to  the  bishops  contained  in  the  Sacramentary  of  Gelasius 
enjoining  the  imprisonment  of  penitents  during  the  whole 
time  from  Ash  Wednesday  to  Maundy  Thursday.  This 
severity  was  exchanged  for  an  opposite  system  of  indulgent 
leniency  as  soon  as  the  custom  of  commuting  penances 
arose,  and  penalties  could  be  bought  off  with  money  or  with 
lands  to  be  ceded  to  churches  or  monasteries. 

During  the  first  centuries  the  possessions  of  the  church 
were  considered  to  be  equally  the  property  of  the  poor,  and 
indeed  they  had  mainly  sprung  out  of  gifts  and  foundations 
which  for  the  most  part  had  been  destined  for  the  benefit 


HI  TO   GERMANY   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES  73 

of  the  poor.  In  the  customary  partition  of  the  revenue 
into  four  portions,  one  portion  was  set  aside  for  the  poor. 
But  during  the  constant  confusion  and  anarchy  to  which 
Rome  with  but  exceptional  intervals  was  subject,  the 
Xenodochia  and  Diaconia  founded  in  better  times  fell  to 
the  ground.  The  right  of  the  poor  to  participate  in  the 
goods  of  the  church  was  forgotten  ;  the  clergy  monopolised 
all.  The  worst  of  it  was  that  through  the  distribution  of 
common  church  property  into  separate  benefices,  and 
through  the  legislation  which  as  time  went  on  the  Roman 
Church  built  up  upon  it,  the  idea  of  any  claim  possessed  by 
the  poor  or  of  any  corresponding  duty  incumbent  upon  the 
holders  of  benefices  vanished  almost  entirely  from  the 
minds  of  the  clergy. 

Ever  since  the  fifth  or  sixth  centuries  the  popes  had 
been  obliged  by  custom  to  distribute  in  Rome,  at  stated 
intervals  and  upon  particular  occasions,  large  sums  of 
money.  The  number  and  amount  of  these  distributions  to 
both  clergy  and  laity — as  described  in  the  work  of  Moreto 
— is  astonishing.  It  proves  at  how  early  a  period,  or  at  all 
events  how  by  the  ninth  century,  the  whole  system  of  reli- 
gion and  of  divine  worship  had  assumed  a  financial  cha- 
racter. The  Roman  clergy  expected  payment  for  every 
service  performed.  Thus,  in  defiance  of  all  the  laws  of  the 
early  church,  the  whole  system  of  perquisites,  fees,  and 
priests'  dues  arose ;  the  world's  complaint  that  at  Rome 
everything  was  a  matter  of  traffic,  and  that  without  pay- 
ment not  the  smallest  favour  could  be  granted,  echoed 
there  unheard. 

The  Germans  in  common  with  the  Latin  nations  found 
themselves  obliged  by  Rome  to  submit  to  the  use  of  the 
Latin  tongue  in  their  church  services.  Had  the  German 
Church  become  affiliated  to  the  Eastern  Church,  divine 
worship  would  now  be  conducted  in  Germany  in  the  mother 
tongue.  But  the  opinion  early  prevailed  in  Rome  that  it 
was  not  only  unnecessary  for  the  people  to  understand  the 
liturgical  forms  and  prayers,  but  even  pernicious.  It  was 


74  THE   RELATION   OF   THE    CITY   OF   ROME  m 

forbidden  to  translate  the  Liturgy ;  eventually  the  pope 
declared  that  to  do  so  would  be  to  throw  pearls  before 
swine,  and  holy  things  to  the  dogs.  From  the  moment 
that  Gregory  VII.,  overruling  the  opinion  of  his  predecessor 
John  VIII.,  declared  the  use  of  the  popular  language  in 
divine  service  to  be  foolish  and  presumptuous,  none  had 
ventured  to  continue  the  custom  in  Germany.  The  conse- 
quences are  now  almost  incalculable.  In  the  first  place  the 
sense  of  fellowship  between  priest  and  people  before  God 
has  been  weakened  and  stifled,  participation  in  the  meaning 
of  the  prayers  and  their  personal  application  restricted,  and 
a  belief  in  the  magical  power  and  sufficiency  of  forms  apart 
from  their  sense  strengthened.  In  the  next  place  the 
teaching  contained  in  the  Liturgy  was  entirely  lost  to  the 
people ;  German  literature,  moreover,  was  deprived  of  a 
most  powerful  aid  towards  development. 

Another  very  significant  change  also  originated  in  Kome, 
which,  as  it  affected  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  supper, 
the  altar,  and  the  oblations,  had  the  result  of  transfiguring 
the  life  of  the  church  in  many  particulars.  In  primitive 
times  it  had  been  the  rule  that  each  church  should  have 
but  one  altar  ;  a  plurality  of  altars  would  have  been  looked 
upon  with  abhorrence,  the  altar  being  the  symbol  of  the 
one  undivided  church.  But  with  Gregory  I.,  or  even 
earlier,  altars  began  to  be  multiplied  in  the  churches  of 
Eome,  partly  on  account  of  the  relics  to  be  consigned  to 
them,  partly  to  increase  the  offerings  of  the  pilgrims.  In 
connection  with  this  innovation  came  an  increase  of  the 
number  of  masses,  and  the  appointment  of  special  priests 
for  saying  them.  Transported  into  Germany  this  custom 
resulted  in  a  church  in  a  small  town  possessing  perhaps  as 
many  as  twenty  or  thirty  altars,  with  a  priest  belonging  to 
each  altar.  That  such  a  host  of  idle  ecclesiastics  should 
have  rendered  all  moral  discipline  and  reform  impossible, 
and  should  have  become  an  intolerable  burden  to  the 
nation  and  the  state,  is  a  matter  of  historical  evidence. 

The   ancient  church  custom  of  bringing   offerings  in 


in  TO   G-EKMANY   IN    THE    .MIDDLE   AGES  75 

bread  and  wine  was  abolished  first  in  Home  in  favour  of 
offerings  made  in  money.  This  is  accounted  for  by  the 
fact  that  the  ever-increasing  numbers  of  pilgrims  who  visited 
Home  naturally  brought  pieces  of  money  with  them  as 
offerings.  At  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  these  gifts 
from  the  pilgrims  amounted  yearly  to  thirty  thousand  gold 
florins  in  St.  Peter's  Church  alone.  The  institution  of  the 
jubilee  by  Boniface  VIII.  was  designed  for  the  purpose  of 
attracting  to  Eome  in  certain  years  at  least  ten  times  the 
usual  number  of  pilgrims  from  the  whole  Western  world. 

It  is  perhaps  hardly  surprising  that  the  city  of  Kome 
should,  even  down  to  the  sixteenth  century,  have  patronised 
slavery,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  the  rest  of  Italy  should 
follow  the  example  of  the  metropolis  of  Christianity.  The 
popes  were  wont  to  issue  edicts  of  slavery  against  whole 
towns  and  provinces  :  thus  for  instance  did  Boniface  VIII, 
against  the  retainers  of  the  Colonnas  ;  Clement  V.  against 
the  Venetians  ;  Sixtus  IV.  against  the  Florentines ;  Julius 
II.  against  the  Bolognese  and  Venetians  ;  and  the  meaning 
of  it  was,  that  any  one  who  could  succeed  in  capturing  any 
of  the  persons  of  the  condemned  was  required  to  make 
slaves  of  them.  The  example  of  Eome  encouraged  the 
whole  of  Italy,  and  especially  Venice,  to  carry  on  a  brisk 
trade  in  foreign,  and  especially  female  slaves.  The  privi- 
lege which  had  sprung  up  in  Eome  and  lasted  for  some 
years,  by  virtue  of  which  a  slave  taking  refuge  on  the 
Capitol  became  free,  was  abolished  in  1548  by  Paul  III. 
upon  the  representation  of  the  senate.  Eome,  of  all  the 
great  powers  of  Europe,  was  the  last  to  retain  slavery. 
Scholasticism  having  undertaken  in  the  thirteenth  century 
to  justify  the  existing  state  of  things,  a  theological  sanction 
was  discovered  for  slavery;  ^Egidius  of  Eome,  taking 
Thomas  Aquinas  as  his  authority,  declared  that  it  was  a 
Christian  institution,  since  original  sin  had  deprived  man 
of  any  right  to  freedom. 

History,  in  the  form  in  which  Germany  received  it 
from  Eome,  had  been  crammed  with  myths  and  legends. 


76  THE   RELATION   OF   THE    CITY    OF  ROME  in 

The  order  of  succession  of  the  bishops  before  the  time  of 
Constantine  had  become  confused,  and  the  error  by  which 
Clement  instead  of  Linus  became  the  first  bishop  appointed 
by  Peter,  was  adopted  in  the  German  books  of  history,  as 
it  had  been  in  Borne. 

Genuine  history  has  nothing  to  impart  concerning  the 
acts  and  fate  of  the  popes  before  Constantine.  Only  in  the 
case  of  three  of  them  does  the  information  supplied  by 
Eusebius,  Hippolytus,  and  Cyprian,  dispel  the  darkness. 
Roman  fictions  filled  the  papal  chronicles  with  martyrdoms 
and  with  the  decrees  which  these  popes  were  supposed  to 
have  issued,  and  these  were  the  sources  from  which  the 
German  chroniclers  drew  when  they  made  the  earliest 
popes  appear  in  the  light  of  general  lawgivers  for  the  whole 
church.  Later,  that  is  after  the  eleventh  century,  a 
further  fiction  was  introduced  to  the  effect  that  every  pope 
during  the  first  three  centuries  had  died  a  martyr.  This 
was  done  with  reference  especially  to  the  Decretals  of 
Isidore,  the  authority  of  which  was  to  be  raised  thereby. 

The  history  of  the  Apostles,  especially  of  St.  Peter 
and  St.  Paul,  was  received  by  the  Germans  from  Rome 
garnished  with  the  fables  of  Abdias,  Marcellus,  Linus,  and 
the  Acts  of  Thecla.  The  legend  of  Simon  Magus  had 
a  very  practical  effect  in  Germany.  Having,  so  ran  the 
legend,  caused  himself  to  be  carried  upward  in  a  fiery 
chariot,  before  the  eyes  of  the  Emperor  Nero,  he  was,  at 
the  prayer  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  precipitated  from  it  and 
killed  by  the  fall.  This  fable,  which  laid  deep  hold  upon 
ecclesiastical  literature  and  thought,  opened  the  way  to  a 
superstitious  credulity  as  regards  the  black  arts.  After  the 
end  of  the  fourth  century  this  credulity  found  fresh 
nourishment  in  the  forged  Acts  of  Cyprian  and  of  Justin  a, 
which  appeared  first  in  Rome,  where  the  relics  of  these 
legendary  saints  were  said  to  repose,  and  which  present  a 
striking  picture  of  the  survival  of  the  magic  and  theurgy 
invented  by  later  heathenism,  mingled  with  the  growth  of 
Christian  demonology.  The  influence  exercised  by  the 


in  TO   GERMANY   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES  77 

*  Komance  of  the  Recognitions,'  which  took  the  Roman 
Clement  as  its  hero,  when  translated  into  Latin  by  Rufinus, 
tended  in  the  same  direction,  and  was  all  the  more  power- 
ful to  disfigure  early  Christian  history  in  that  the  legend 
found  its  way  even  into  the  Liturgy.  We  may  finally 
notice  the  '  Legend  of  Theophilus,'  translated  into  Latin 
by  a  Neapolitan  priest,  which  became  exceedingly  popular 
in  a  poetical  form,  quickly  spreading  throughout  Western 
Europe  and  contributing  in  great  measure  to  rouse  and 
establish  in  the  minds  of  the  people  those  noxious  and 
murderous  delusions  which  prompted  the  trials  for  witch- 
craft to  which  we  owe  the  darkest  page  of  German  history. 
It  had  become  impossible  for  Germans  to  form  for  them- 
selves an  idea  in  the  slightest  degree  corresponding  to  the 
reality  of  either  ecclesiastical  or  secular  history.  They 
were  everywhere  environed  by  fictions,  which  they  dared 
not  meddle  with,  lest  they  should  incur  a  suspicion  of 
heresy,  or  which  confronted  them  with  such  weighty  names 
and  authorities  that  every  doubt  seemed  to  be  sinful. 
Every  attempt  at  critical  examination  became  complicated 
with  inexplicable  contradictions ;  history  had  become  a 
labyrinth,  in  which  no  guide,  and  from  which  no  escape, 
could  be  found.  So  it  happened  that  precisely  during  the 
period  when  the  Germans  stood  most  in  need  of  the 
equipment  and  weapons  of  history  for  the  defence  of 
their  rights  and  the  protection  of  their  throne,  the 
deepest  ignorance  prevailed.  They  sank  defenceless  under 
the  burden  of  the  fables  and  fabrications  which  had 
been  forged  for  them  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps.  In 
Rome  a  flourishing  literature  of  fictions  and  forgeries  had 
sprung  up,  which,  in  consequence  of  the  general  absence  of 
the  historical  and  critical  sense,  obtained  credence  every- 
where. The  fabricators  felt  themselves  secure ;  they  had 
no  need  to  fear  being  convicted.  In  any  other  case  most 
of  these  falsehoods,  clumsily  constructed  as  they  were 
by  the  coarse,  illiterate  minds  of  their  authors,  would 
have  been  easy  enough  to  expose.  But  people  lived  in 


78  THE   RELATION    OF   THE    CITY    OF   ROME  in 

those    days   in   a   visionary   world   in    which   there    were 
no  limits  as  to  what  was  possible  or  conceivable. 

The  period  of  the  Eoman  fictions  and  forgeries — the 
date  of  their  commencement  is  easier  to  point  out  than 
that  of  their  end — began  with  the  first  ten  years  of  the  sixth 
century,  when  the  long  schism  between  Symmachus  and 
Laurentius  gave  occasion  for  setting  up  and  establishing  a 
new  doctrine  respecting  papal  prerogatives. 

A  series  of  such  inventions  sprang  up,  intended  to  prove 
that  the  pope  was  not  amenable  to  human  judgment,  and 
that  consequently  no  accusation  could  be  brought  against 
him.  Others  have  reference  to  the  history  of  various 
popes,  as  of  Felix  and  his  opponent  Liberius :  one  fiction 
represented  the  latter  as  a  heretic  and  a  persecutor  of 
the  orthodox  faith  who  died  unconverted ;  another,  as  a 
penitent,  reconciled  to  God  and  the  church. 

The  '  Donation  of  Constantine '  was  a  document  composed 
in  Eome  during  the  eighth  century  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Kornan  hierarchy.  It  furnished  an  inexhaustible  pretext 
for  claims  of  a  manifold  description ;  it  helped  towards  the 
erection  of  the  church  into  a  state,  and  became  the  most 
effectual  weapon  in  the  long  struggle  which  led  to  the  ruin 
of  the  German  Empire.  Palpable  as  the  imposition  was, 
nobody  in  Germany  ventured  to  question  its  genuineness 
seriously,  any  more  than  the  truth  of  the  fable  with 
which  it  was  combined,  of  the  baptism  of  Constantine 
in  Eome,  or  the  absurd  story  of  the  healing  of  his  leprosy, 
notwithstanding  the  contradiction  of  it  which  •  might  be 
read  in  the  Chronicle  of  Jerome,  of  which  earlier  chroniclers 
had  made  use. 

The  light  of  history  is  given  us  to  the  end  that, 
according  to  the  old  Eoman  saying,  we  may  neither  grieve 
nor  mock  at  things  human,  but  understand  them  ;  that, 
looking  before  and  after,  we  may  consider  impartially  the 
causes  and  effects  of  every  great  epoch  and  violent  cata- 
strophe by  which  a  new  era  is  ushered  in ;  content,  as 


in  TO   GERMANY    IN   THE    MIDDLE    AGES  79 

concerns  the  future  of  the  world,  to  await  calmly  the 
course  of  events ;  not  permitting  ourselves  to  be  deceived 
by  visionary  expectations  as  though  the  stream  could  all  at 
once  be  made  to  run  uphill.  For  my  own  part  I  must 
confess  that  what  took  place  in  Germany  from  1517  to 
1552  was  to  me  for  a  long  period  an  inexplicable  riddle 
and  a  subject  of  sorrow  and  pain.  I  could  only  perceive 
the  separation  that  was  produced,  only  the  fact  that  the 
two  halves  of  the  nation,  rudely  smitten  asunder  as  by  the 
blow  of  a  sword,  had  been  condemned  to  perpetual  strife 
and  enmity.  Since  I  have  searched  into  and  studied  the 
history  of  Borne  and  Germany  in  the  middle  ages,  and  now 
that  the  occurrences  of  late  years  have  so  strikingly  con- 
firmed to  me  the  result  of  my  researches,  I  think  that  I 
understand  that  which  was  formerly  enigmatical  to  me, 
and  I  adore  the  ways  of  Providence  in  whose  almighty 
hand  the  German  nation  has  been  an  instrument,  a  vessel 
in  the  House  of  God,  and  not  an  ignoble  one. 

Eome  once  more  has  become  what  for  1,400  years  she 
had  ceased  to  be,  the  capital  of  a  united  Kingdom  of  Italy, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  centre-point  of  the  church  as  the 
residence  of  the  pope.  The  genius  of  Rome  must  complain, 
'  Two  souls  now  dwell  within  my  breast ;  two  hostile  souls 
burning  with  rancour  and  enmity  one  against  the  other.' 
They  seem  able  neither  to  live  together  nor  yet  far  apart ; 
Vatican  and  Quirinal  resemble  two  hostile  fortresses  within 
the  same  boundary.  Meanwhile,  the  process  of  secularisa- 
tion advances  with  great  strides ;  from  north  and  south  a 
generation  is  growing  up,  which,  less  susceptible  to  spiritual 
influences,  seems  destined  by  degrees  to  absorb  the  elder 
generation  which  is  gradually  dying  out.  Ecclesiastical 
Rome  is  more  powerful  for  the  present  in  Germany  than  in 
Italy.  This  was  also  the  case  in  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries,  and  then  happened — what  we  all  know. 


80  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET 


IV 

DANTE  AS  A   PEOPIIET^ 

THE  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  unmistakably  served  as 
guides  and  types  to  the  poet  of  the  '  Divina  Commedia.' 
Confident  in  their  mission,,  and  impelled  by  the  Spirit 
which  dwelt  within  them,  these  men  assumed  the  right  or 
recognised  the  duty  of  speaking  the  truth  before  kings  and 
princes,  rich  and  poor,  and  of  taking  the  poor  under  their 
protection  against  oppression  and  the  arbitrary  perversion 
of  their  rights.  They  held  up  to  the  whole  nation  the 
mirror  of  its  sins,  and  testified  to  the  judgments  that  would 
inevitably  follow.  Again  and  again  they  set  before  their 
contemporaries  the  ideal  of  God's  people  under  theocratic 
rule,  the  realisation  of  which  was  to  be  looked  for  in  the 
future.  Yet  they  did  not  rest  content  with  preaching,  re- 
buking, and  admonishing ;  they  took  an  active  share  in  the 
life  of  the  people ;  they  set  the  example  of  what  they 
demanded.  Men  of  the  present,  and  of  immediate  action 
where  such  was  necessary,  they  occupied  themselves,  not 
only  with  the  future,  but  also  with  the  past  history  of  the 
people,  in  order  to  draw  from  it  examples,  sometimes  of 
encouragement  and  sometimes  of  warning.  They  under- 
stood withal  the  art  of  clothing  their  thoughts  in  beautiful 
language,  and  of  conveying  them  in  the  rhythm  of  poetry. 
A  prophet,  in  the  sense  and  spirit  of  those  Old  Testament 
seers  and  poets,  Dante  aspired  to  be.  The  task  which 
falls  to  his  lot  is  fourfold.  In  the  first  place  he  is  to  be  a 

1  Address  delivered  at  the  public  sitting  of  the  Academy  of  Science  in 
Munich,  November  15,  1887— printed  hitherto  only  in  the  Allgem.  Ztg. 


iv  DANTE   AS   A  PROPHET  81 

preacher  of  righteousness,  of  peace,  and  of  love,  and  he  has 
a  doctrine  to  inculcate  which  has  hitherto  lain  hidden,  but 
without  which  these  three  blessings  cannot  subsist  upon 
earth.  Next  it  is  his  wish  and  duty  to  hold  up  to  the 
people  of  his  generation  the  mirror  of  their  errors,  their 
crimes,  and  their  vices,  and  to  lead  them  thereby  to  self- 
conviction  and  penitence.  In  connection  with  this  comes 
the  third  part  of  his  calling,  which  is,  to  rebuke  the  faults 
and  abuses  in  church  and  state,  and  to  point  out  the  cor- 
responding remedies.  Lastly,  he  is  to  give  intimation  of  a 
brighter  future,  and  to  awaken  and  encourage  the  hope  of 
deliverance,  not  far  distant,  out  of  the  abyss  of  sin  and 
misery  into  which  the  Christian  world  has  fallen. 

Dante  is  filled  and  uplifted  by  the  thought  that  he  is 
charged  with  a  mission  from  on  high.  It  is  a  matter  of 
conscience  for  him  not  to  shun  this  mission ;  and  he  has 
been  peculiarly  fitted  and  educated  for  it  by  heavy  strokes 
of  fortune  and  by  the  lessons  of  his  own  life.  He  regards 
himself  as  an  instrument  chosen  of  God,  to  whom  has  been 
entrusted  a  not  insignificant  place  in  the  Divine  Counsels 
respecting  the  whole  of  Christendom,  and  Italy  in  parti- 
cular, and  an  influence  unique  in  its  kind.  His  great 
poem,  the  work  of  his  life  and  of  his  love,  upon  which  of 
years  he  has  concentrated  the  whole  force  of  his  genius, 
will  in  God's  hands,  he  is  confident,  become  a  means  of 
making  mankind,  and  above  all  his  own  countrymen,  ripe 
for  the  reception  of  the  new  order  of  things,  and  of  pioneer- 
ing the  way  for  the  great  reformation  in  society,  in  church, 
and  state,  which  is  now  impending,  and  of  influencing 
men's  minds  and  wills  in  its  behalf.  In  his  eyes  the  poem 
is  a  sacred  one — 

that  hath  made 

Both  heaven  and  earth  co-partners  in  its  toil, 
And  with  lean  abstinence,  through  many  a  year, 
Faded  my  brow.' 2 

Of  the  three  Christian  virtues,  Hope  is  that  to  which 

-  Parad.  xxv.  1.  (Gary's  Trans.) 


82  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  iv 

the  poet  feels  himself  called  upon  to  give  especial  promi- 
nence. Beatrice  assures  him  that  the  Church  Militant 
possesses  no  son  so  gifted  with  hope  as  himself.3  Part  of 
the  mission  for  which  he  is  specially  gifted  is  to  be  the 
prophet  of  Hope.  By  his  description  of  Paradise  and  of 
the  way  of  purification  leading  thereunto,  he  strives  to 
kindle  in  men  the  consciousness  that  they  likewise  are  called 
to  the  enjoyment  of  these  glories,  and  to  awaken  in  them 
the  longing  for  them  and  the  conviction  that  on  themselves 
alone  depends  the  attainment  of  these  good  things. 

Hope  begets  love  to  God  and  man.  Only  through  the 
revival  of  hope  in  the  soul  will  covetousness,  the  root  of  all 
evil,  be  cast  out  of  the  hearts  of  men,  and  the  regeneration 
or  reformation  be  by  that  means  made  possible,  to  which 
Dante  looks  forward  with  the  ardent  longing  of  his  whole 
being,  and  to  the  heralds  and  pioneers  of  which  he  deems 
himself  to  belong.  Above  all,  therefore,  he  aspires  to  be 
the  prophet  and  teacher  of  Hope  to  his  contemporaries  and 
countrymen.  God,  says  St.  James  to  him,  has  given  thee 
grace  to  see  these  things  in  order  that 

thou  mayest  therewith 
Thyself,  and  all  who  hear,  invigorate 
With  hope,  that  leads  to  blissful  end.4 

St.  Peter,  when  the  poet  had  made  his  confession  of 
faith  to  him,  had  already 

benediction  uttering  with  song, 
.  .  .  compass'd  him  thrice,5 

ordaining  him  to  his  prophetic  mission.  Beatrice,  St. 
Peter,  and  his  ancestor  Cacciaguida  repeatedly  charge  him 
to  make  public  what  he  has  been  shown,  boldly  and  unre- 
servedly revealing  the  '  whole  vision ' 6  to  his  contem- 
poraries. 

It  is  indispensable,  in  order  to  comprehend  rightly  the 
great  poem,  and  to  appreciate  the  author  and  his  views, 

3  Parad.  xxv.  54.  4  Parad.  xxv.  46. 

5  Parad.  xxiv.  148.  •  Parad.  xvii.  127 ;  Purg.  xxxii.  101. 


iv  DANTE   AS   A   PKOPHET  83 

that  this  preconception  in  Dante's  mind  and  his  consequent 
bent  of  character  should  be  constantly  kept  in  view.  He 
styles  himself  a  son  of  grace.  Cacciaguida  breaks  out  into 
exclamations  of  wonder  that  this  his  grandson  should  be 
selected  for  so  great  a  favour.7  He  is  filled  with  apprehen- 
sion upon  Virgil's  being  summoned  to  accompany  him 
through  the  realm  of  the  departed ;  he  feels  that  so  rare  a 
favour,  so  extraordinary  a  privilege,  can  only  fall  to  the  lot 
of  one  who  is  entrusted  with  an  office  requiring  propor- 
tionate strength  and  enlightenment.  Only  two  living  men 
before  him,  ^Eneas  and  St.  Paul,  have  penetrated  into  the 
world  beyond  :  the  former,  because  he  had  been  appointed 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  city  which  was  destined  to  be- 
come not  only  the  seat  of  the  empire,  but  the  residence  of 
the  head  of  the  church,  the  depository  of  the  supreme 
spiritual  power  ;  whilst  the  latter,  St.  Paul,  shared  this 
favour  as  the  messenger  of  Faith  and  the  co-founder  of 
the  Koman  Church.  But  Dante  ? 

Not  jJEneas  I,  nor  Paul, 
Myself  I  deem  not  worthy,  and  none  else 
Will  deem  me.8 

Can  it  be  that  to  him  is  to  be  entrusted  a  work  and  a 
mission  similar  and  akin  to  that  of  .Eneas  or  of  Paul? 
Yet  he  obeys,  and  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings  the  cer- 
tainty comes  upon  him  that  such  is  really  the  case ;  he 
recognises  that,  like  Daniel  or  Isaiah,  he  is  called  through 
the  poetic  gift  to  be  a  teacher  and  censor  of  mankind,  to 
foretell  and  to  promote  the  healing  and  restoration  of  the  in- 
stitutions, of  some  of  which  ^Eneas  had  prepared  the  found- 
ation, whilst  others  had  been  realised  by  St.  Paul.  Virgil 
for  the  present  inspires  courage  and  confidence  into  his  soul 
by  the  assurance  that  three  blessed  women  in  heaven  are 
concerning  themselves  with  his  safety.9  Therefore  it  can 
be  no  less  a  one  than  St.  Peter,  the  first  founder  and  occu- 
pant of  the  holy  chair,  the  bearer  of  the  keys  for  binding 
and  loosing — Peter,  and  none  else  can  it  be,  who  solemnly 

T  Farad,  xv.  26.  8  Inf.  ii.  34.  9  Inf.  ii.  124. 

o  2 


84  DANTE   AS   A  PKOPHET  iv 

consecrates  Dante  to  his  prophetic  office.1  Again,  at  the 
close  of  his  lofty  song,  the  bold  poet  confidently  cherishes 
the  hope  that  it  may  be  recognised  as  a  *  sacred  poem,'  and, 
operating  with  salutary  effect  upon  the  minds  of  his  fellow - 
citizens  who  had  banished  him  from  the  paternal  city,  may 
reconcile  them  with  him  and  convince  them  of  the  high 
worth  and  value  of  their  countryman.  '  With  other  voice,' 
not  as  a  political  partisan,  but  as  one  called  by  heaven  and 
consecrated  to  be  a  witness  and  teacher  of  truth  and  righ- 
teousness— 

I  shall  forthwith  return ;  and,  standing  up 

At  my  baptismal  font,  shall  claim  the  wreath 

Due  to  the  poet's  brows.'2 

Hence  it  appears  that  Dante  had  no  intention  that  the 
publication  of  the  completed  poem  should  be  postponed 
until  after  his  death,  because,  as  Foscolo  thought,  he  shrank 
from  the  consequences,  dreading  the  vengeance  of  those 
amongst  the  Guelphs  and  the  clergy  whom  he  had  exposed 
or  offended ;  he  trusted,  on  the  contrary,  that  he  might  enjoy 
the  effect  of  it  during  his  lifetime,  and  that  it  might  be  the 
stepping-stone  for  his  return  from  banishment,  and  procure 
for  him  honour  and  fame  amongst  his  fellow-citizens  and 
throughout  Italy.  He  does  not  hide  from  himself  that  the 
work,  with  its  harsh  reproofs  and  unsparing  disclosures, 
which,  '  as  the  wind,  doth  smite  the  proudest  summits,'3 
must  arouse  many  powerful  and  dangerous  enemies  against 
him.  It  would  be  more  worldly  wise  to 

forecast,  that,  driven  from  the  place 
Most  dear  to  me,  I  may  not  lose  myself 
All  other  by  my  song.4 

Yet  his  ancestor  reassures  and  encourages  him;  regard- 
less of  consequences,  he  is  to  reveal  the  whole  truth ; 
'  although  at  first  unwelcome,  his  word,  when  digested,  will 
turn  to  vital  nourishment.' 5 

The  founder  of  Islam  of  old  appealed  to  his  Arabian 

1  Inf.  xxv.  14.  2  Farad,  xxv.  8.  3  Parad.  xvii.  23. 

4  Parad.  xvii.  106.  5  Parad.  xvii.  125. 


iv  DANTE   AS   A  PROPHET  85 

followers  on  the  strength  of  the  literary  beauty  and  sym- 
metrical harmony  of  the  passages  in  his  Koran  ;  he  con- 
ceived that  in  such  poetic  strains  they  would  recognise  the 
surest  testimony  to  his  prophetic  mission  ;  and  he  was  not 
deceived.  Dante  gave  to  the  people  of  Italy  more  than  did 
Mohammed  to  his  followers.  He  raised  the  poetic  language 
of  his  country,  as  with  one  giant  stride,  out  of  timorous 
straitened  beginnings  to  classical  perfection  ;  he  created  a 
work  in  this  respect  unrivalled,  much  less  excelled.  But 
such  an  authentication  of  his  mission  could  not  suffice  a 
Dante.  He  knew  that  whosoever  would  appear  before 
Christendom  as  a  teacher  and  prophet  must  enjoy  a  spot- 
less reputation  in  moral  relations,  or  at  least  have  given 
proofs  of  purification  by  conversion  and  repentance.  For 
this  reason  he  assigns  a  prominent  place  in  the  poem  to 
his  own  repentance  and  amendment. 

Hence  the  poem  is  secondarily  the  history  of  a  human 
soul — its  aberrations,  conversion,  purification,  and  con- 
firmation. It  recounts  in  images  and  allegories  how  Dante's 
will,  formerly  perverted  and  enslaved,  and  his  spirit,  obscured 
by  sin,  had  gradually  attained  to  enlightenment,  health,  and 
freedom,  whilst  it  uses  a  poetic  licence  in  compressing  the 
work  of  years  into  the  space  of  a  few  days.  But  the  indi- 
vidual is  typical  of  the  whole  species,  and  mankind  is  called 
upon  to  recognise  its  own  reflection  in  the  mirror  placed 
before  it  by  the  record  of  Dante's  fate  and  conduct.  Yet 
the  scope  of  the  poem  is  still  wider ;  it  aspires  to  an  even 
higher  flight.  In  the  picture  which  he  paints  of  the  three 
classes  of  mankind,  viz.  those  who  are  hardened  in  vice, 
those  who  are  in  process  of  purification,  and  those  whose 
blessed  souls  are  perfected,  Dante  develops  his  work  into  a 
theodicy  representing  the  divine  economy  of  the  world's 
story,  within  the  bounds,  naturally,  of  contemporary  know- 
ledge, and  in  accordance  with  the  poet's  own  views.  This 
theodicy  necessarily  at  once  becomes  a  weighty  and  serious 
indictment  against  his  times,  and  the  poem  is  the  boldest, 
most  unsparing,  most  incisive,  denunciatory  song  which 


86  DANTE   AS   A  PKOPHET  iv 

ever  been  composed.  Lamentation,  anger,  and  satire 
alternate  with  one  another.  Dante  wages  war  against  the 
follies  and  vices  of  his  times  and  surroundings  with  the 
sharpest  weapons ;  he  deals  around  him  deadly  blows, 
and  it  is  nevertheless  peace,  peace  with  God  and  man, 
which  is  the  goal  of  his  highest  aspirations.  The  poet 
is  himself  meanwhile  an  exile,  perpetually  driven  from  one 
asylum  to  another  ;  a  fugitive  wrestling  with  care  and 
poverty,  and  under  the  burden  of  the  sentence  of  death.  On 
this  account  his  work  at  the  same  time  becomes  a  defence  of 
himself,  although  he  does  not  flinch  from  appropriating 
his  own  share  of  the  general  blame.  Like  a  long  gleam 
of  light  the  image  of  Beatrice,  the  glorification  of  his 
youthful  love,  illuminates  the  whole  poem.  In  compliance 
with  a  '  wondrous  vision '  Dante  had  vowed  soon  after  her 
death  to  raise  a  worthy  monument  to  her  with  all  the 
powers  of  his  poetic  genius,  and  the  manner  and  the  skill 
with  which  the  vow  was  accomplished  will  remain  for  the 
admiration  of  all  time  a  phenomenon  unique  in  the  literature 
of  the  world.  Lastly,  the  work  is  a  Temple  of  Fame 
erected  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  the  friends  and  foes  of 
the  poet,  or  of  individuals  whom  he  held  to  be  representa- 
tive of  any  definite  paths  of  life,  whether  of  vice  or  virtue. 

The  disputes  of  modern  commentators  begin  over  the 
very  opening  of  the  poem,  and  interpretations  become  at 
once  widely  divergent,  in  a  manner  which  exercises  a 
decisive  influence  upon  the  signification  of  the  whole  work. 
Aroused  from  a  confused  slumber,  Dante  finds  himself  in 
the  midst  of  a  gloomy  wood.  In  the  wearisome  endeavour 
to  find  an  exit,  he  arrives  at  the  foot  of  an  eminence 
of  which  the  summit  is  radiant  in  the  morning  sun. 
Attempting  to  make  the  ascent,  he  is  set  upon  by  three 
animals,  a  panther,  a  lion,  and  a  she-wolf,  who  obstruct 
the  path  before  him.  He  is  pressed  most  sorely  by  the  she- 
wolf  ;  whereupon  a  help  in  need  appears  in  the  form  of  his 
teacher  Yirgil,  who  informs  him  that  in  course  of  time  a 
greyhound  (veltro)  will  appear  and  drive  this  beast,  the 


iv  DANTE   AS   A  PEOPHET  87 

tormentress  and  misleader  of  mankind,  back  into  hell  from 
whence  she  came,  and  will  thus  become  the  deliverer  of 
Italy. 

The  question  now  arises,  What  do  these  animals  sig- 
nify ?  Are  they  moral  delinquencies  to  which  Dante  here 
makes  confession  ?  Or  is  it  an  intellectual  aberration,  a  con- 
flict of  doubt  and  scepticism  with  faith,  which  is  indicated 
here  at  the  outset,  and  with  which  his  mistress  later  on  re- 
proaches him  ?  How  do  they  stand  in  relation  to  the  chief 
personages  by  whom  Dante  is  accompanied  throughout  his 
pilgrimage — Beatrice,  Virgil,  Matilda  ?  And  moreover,  who 
is  the  veltro  ? 

The  animals  are  symbolical  of  the  three  vices  by  whose 
temptations  at  one  period  of  his  life  Dante  had  been 
so  fiercely  assailed  that  he  had  more  or  less  succumbed 
to  them.  They  represent  Pleasure  (the  panther),  Pride 
(the  lion),  and  Avarice  (the  she- wolf).  Upon  this  point  the 
older  commentators,  as  well  as  those  who  were  personally 
acquainted  with  the  poet,  are  agreed.  But  it  has  recently 
been  discovered  in  Germany  and  Italy  that  the  three 
animals  signify  the  three  powers  whom  Dante  looked  upon 
as  hostile  to  him  —  Florence,  France,  and  the  Papacy. 
This  interpretation,  in  support  of  which  there  is  not  a 
single  other  passage  in  the  whole  poem,  becomes  a  disturb- 
ing element  in  the  whole  fabric  of  the  work,  and  necessitates 
the  adoption  of  other  interpretations  equally  untenable  ; 
yet  the  number  of  its  advocates  is  at  the  present  time 
considerable. 

That  Dante,  although  married,  did  not  abstain  from 
sensual  errors  is  acknowledged  by  himself,  and  attested  by  his 
canzoni  and  letters — those  to  Morello  Malaspina  in  parti- 
cular—  as  well  as  by  his  contemporaries,  amongst  them  his 
own  son  Pietro.  Any  one  weighing  the  evidence  collected 
by  Scheffer-Boichorst 6  must  acknowledge  that  the  attempt 

6  Aus  Dante's  Vcrbannung  (Strassburg,  1882),  pp.  211-212.  The  evidence 
of  Bastiano  of  Gubbio,  one  of  Dante's  pupils,  which  had  previously 
escaped  notice,  is  of  special  importance. 


88  DANTE   AS   A   PEOPHET  iv 

to  deny  the  culpability  of  the  poet  upon  this  point  is 
vain. 

We  must  not  be  misled  by  his  endeavour  to  invest  some 
of  his  love-songs  in  the  '  Convito  '  with  an  allegorical  mean- 
ing, and  to  substitute  Philosophy — how  worthy  soever  to  be 
considered  as  a  gentle  lady  whose  favour  must  be  sought 
by  earnest  study — for  those  women  and  maidens  for  whose 
love  he  sued.  Dante  himself  soon  tires  of  the  unnatural 
constraint  which  this  conventional  style  imposes  on  him,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  piece  drops  the  mannerism  which  had 
sunk  to  mere  pedantic  fooling.  The  custom,  universal  at 
that  day,  of  interpreting  the  Old  Testament,  and  above  all 
the  Song  of  Songs,  allegorically,  had  momentarily  misled 
him.  This  process,  in  which  fancy  and  caprice  played  their 
part  utterly  uncontrolled,  must  have  been  familiar  to 
him  from  his  Biblical  studies.  It  was  a  favourite  occu- 
pation of  the  time,  and  even  two  centuries  later  Tasso 
allegorised  his  epic  poem  after  a  similar  fashion. 

Dante  confesses  that,  partly  through  his  Canzoni,  and 
the  love  adventures  which  prompted  them,  partly  through 
the  life  of  dissipation  which  he  led  in  Florence  in  company 
with  Forese,  he  had  given  grievous  scandal,  and  had 
obtained  a  bad  reputation.  The  thought  that  he  has  in 
consequence  forfeited  the  esteem  and  consideration  which 
are  indispensable  for  a  poet-prophet,  if  his  work  is  to  pro- 
duce the  intended  effect — this  thought  everywhere  accom- 
panies him  and  forms  the  bitterest  drop  in  his  cup  of 
sorrow.  This  is  the  motive  of  the  '  Convito,'  which  is 
designed  to  bear  witness  to  the  serious  studies  and  scientific 
attainments  of  a  man  who  hitherto  has  been  only  known 
through  his  love-* songs.  In  his  principal  work  no  further 
attempts  at  palliation  are  made,  but  Dante  at  once  sets  him- 
self forth  as  a  man  who  has  sinned  much,  but  who  has 
also  loved  much,  and  who  through  repentance  and  purified 
love  has  merited  forgiveness.  Beatrice  represents  to  him 
that,  having  fallen  so  low,  but  one  means  of  rescue  remains 
possible  for  him,  namely  the  sight  of  hell  and  of  the 


iv  DANTE   AS  A  PROPHET  89 

punishments  of  the  condemned.  She  reproaches  him  also 
with  having  lent  himself  to  the  allurements  of  a  maiden.7 
At  the  entrance  of  Purgatory  seven  P's  (the  seven  deadly 
sins)  are  inscribed  upon  his  forehead,  which  afterwards,  as 
he  pursues  his  way  through  the  different  terraces  of  the 
Mount  of  Purification,  one  by  one  disappear.  Dante,  in 
the  course  of  his  pilgrimage  through  Purgatory,  is  aware 
for  which  sins  he  himself  will  have  to  do  penance.  He  will 
undergo  the  punishment  of  the  envious  for  a  short  time 
only  ;  heavier  will  be  the  penance  imposed  upon  him  for 
pride  ;  still  heavier  that  for  his  most  cherished  sins  ;  even 
now,  whilst  only  beholding  the  expiation  for  the  other  kinds 
of  sin,  he  must,  though  only  momentarily,  yet  in  full 
measure,  experience  the  pain  of  fire,  the  punishment  for 
sensual  sin  ;  this  is  the  price  at  which  he  must  purchase 
the  sight  of  Beatrice,  and  conscience  convinces  him  of 
having  deserved  the  punishment. 

The  attempt  to  exonerate  Dante  from  the  stain  of 
sensual  excesses  and  matrimonial  unfaithfulness  has  led  to 
another  misinterpretation.  It  has  been  assumed  that  the 
reproaches  of  Beatrice  and  Dante's  avowal  refer  to  an  in- 
tellectual aberration.  He  must,  it  is  asserted,  have  at  one 
time  imperilled  the  steadfastness  of  his  faith  through  his 
philosophic  studies,  and  fallen  into  doubt  and  disbelief. 

In  the  whole  of  Dante's  writings  there  is  not  a  trace  of 
his  having  at  any  period  of  his  life  strayed  from  the  faith. 
One  passage  only  in  the  '  Commedia '  lends  itself  with  some 
degree  of  plausibility  to  the  theory,  and  has  consequently  been 
constantly  brought  forward  in  proof  of  it.  Beatrice  says  to 
Dante,  who  has  failed  to  understand  the  lesson  she  would 
convey  to  him  in  figures,  '  Know  then  that  the  school  that 
thou  hast  followed  cannot  with  all  its  learning  follow  my 
discourse,  and  see  how  thy  way  from  God's  way  is  far  as 
the  poles  asunder.' 8  Now  the  lesson  of  which  there  is  here 
question  is  certainly  addressed  to  the  poet  in  particular, 
and  is  one  that  was  unknown  in  the  philosophical  and  theo- 

7  Purg.  xxxi.  58.  8  Purg.  xxxiii.  85. 


90  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  iv 

logical  schools.  It  is  connected  with  his  favourite  doctrine 
of  the  divine  foundation  of  the  empire,  of  which  the  first 
beginning  was  to  be  traced  back  to  the  earthly  Paradise. 
This  means  that  the  prohibition  to  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge  was  the  beginning  of  law  and  ordinance, 
and  of  the  corresponding  duty  of  obedience.  This  was  the 
foundation,  in  principle,  of  the  highest  earthly  power,  the 
empire,  as  the  source  of  legislation  and  the  protector  of 
right.  The  tree  also  is  thus  made  the  symbol  of  the  impe- 
rial rule  of  the  Eoman  Empire.  In  the  vision  which  is  in- 
troduced, the  Grifnn  (Christ)  binds  the  pole  of  His  chariot 
(the  church)  to  this  tree  (the  empire),  and  abstains  at  the 
same  time  from  eating  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree.  '  Thus  is 
the  seed  of  all  rights  preserved '  is  echoed  around  ;  and 
therewith  Christ  inculcates  upon  the  church  the  lesson 
that  she  should  appropriate  none  of  the  possessions  and 
rights  of  the  empire.  Beatrice  consequently  reproaches 
Dante  with  a  want  of  knowledge,  not  with  error. 

This,  then,  is  the  unsound  foundation  upon  which  a 
whole  edifice  of  conjectures  has  been  raised  in  the  past  and 
present,  touching  the  internal  struggles  of  Dante's  mind 
and  his  supposed  temporary  infidelity.  It  is  high  time 
that  these  German  fancies  should  be  dismissed ;  they  dis- 
turb and  obscure  the  entire  purpose  of  the  poem.  Philo- 
sophy in  Dante's  eyes  is  not  the  equal  of  Theology,  but  its 
helpful  and  indispensable  sister ;  they  do  not  contradict, 
but  supplement  and  correct  each  other.  Dante  invariably 
speaks  with  fervent  love  and  admiration  of  Philosophy,  of 
the  services  she  has  rendered  to  him,  and  of  the  benefits 
and  enjoyments  for  which  he  is  indebted  to  her.  Although 
unacquainted  with  the  old  Greek  Fathers,  Justin,  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  and  others,  he  shared  their  opinion  upon  this 
point.  He  goes  so  far  therein  as  to  deem  the  love  of  God 
the  highest  good — to  be  the  combined  result  of  philosophical 
principles  derived  from  physics  and  metaphysics,  and  from 
divine  revelation.  Aristotle,  the  great  master  of  human 
science,  is  invested  in  the  poet's  eyes  with  infallible  power 


iv  DANTE   AS   A  PROPHET  91 

and  authority  which  should  rank  next  to  the  empire, 
directing  and  advising  as  the  third  in  the  sovereign  band. 

Virgil,  in  Dante's  opinion,  is  a  witness  to  the  great- 
ness and  rightful  supremacy  of  Eome,  an  unconscious 
prophet  of  Christianity,  and  above  all  the  representative  of 
the  science  and  moral  philosophy  of  heathendom.  The 
latter,  in  Dante's  eyes,  is  a  preparation  for  and  introduction 
to  the  Christian  faith.  It  is  Beatrice,  therefore,  the  light 
of  divine  revelation,  his  heavenly  protectress,  who  sends 
Virgil  to  be  his  guide  and  to  assist  him  in  the  path  of  moral 
amendment.  In  this  image  Dante  has  clothed  the  thought 
—we  might  well  say  the  fact — that  the  study  of  heathen 
literature  and  science  turned  his  mind  from  earthly  pas- 
sions, illuminating  and  preparing  it  for  the  reception  of 
the  true  Christian  doctrine.  For  in  Dante's  conception 
the  science  and  literature,  and  above  all  the  moral  philosophy 
and  political  teaching,  of  Greece  and  Eome,  were  interpene- 
trated with  rays  of  divine  light,  and  contained  a  fulness  of 
eternal  truth  which  Christianity,  by  its  dogmatic  teaching 
upon  the  Trinity,  the  Atonement,  and  the  Church,  after- 
wards supplemented  whilst  in  a  measure  correcting  it.  It 
is  significant  that  before  the  outset  of  the  journey  over  the 
Mount  of  Purification,  Virgil  is  recommended  by  Cato  to 
cleanse  Dante's  face  from  all  traces  of  uncleanliness,  since 
it  would  be  unseemly  to  appear  before  the  Angel  of  Paradise 
with  eyes  dimmed  by  infernal  mists.  Thus,  before  the 
actual  penance  began,  natural  and  ethical  science  had  had 
a  purifying  influence  upon  his  soul. 

It  is  Virgil,  furthermore,  who  protects  Dante  in  hell 
from  the  petrifying  glance  of  Medusa.  For,  if  not  main- 
tained and  nourished  by  classical  learning  and  science,  the 
light  in  the  human  soul,  when  forced  to  sojourn  with  the 
condemned  in  this  world  of  hatred,  lying,  and  slander,  would 
be  utterly  quenched  by  the  overpowering  and  benumbing 
spectacle  of  infernal  terrors  and  bestial  passions. 

Once  more  it  is  Virgil  who  renders  it  possible  for  his 
charge  to  recognise  the  universal  power  of  fraud,  and  to 


92  DANTE  AS   A  PKOPHET  TV 

turn  it  into  his  service.  The  symbol  of  this  is  the  monster 
Geryon,  half  man,  half  serpent,  by  whom  the  two  poets  were 
together  transported  into  the  infernal  regions,  where  this 
many-shaped  vice  is  punished.  Dante  has  certainly  no 
suspicion  that  he  himself  as  well  as  all  his  contemporaries 
are  lying  buried  under  a  mountain  of  impostures,  fictions, 
and  fabrications  which  it  will  only  be  given  to  much  later 
ages  to  remove.  Neither  does  he  divine  that  many  a  truth 
once  recognised  by  the  ancients  was  now  lying  hidden 
under  a  rubbish  heap  of  error  and  misrepresentation. 

Dante's  relation  to  Beatrice,  to  this  combination  of  the 
earthly  and  the  heavenly,  of  abstract  symbolism  with  the 
most  living  personality,  is  something  quite  unique,  unex- 
perienced in  any  other  human  life.  To  him  she  is  woman- 
hood in  its  purity,  loveliness,  and  ideal  perfection,  and  with 
the  remembrance  of  her  earthly  beauty  is  coupled  the  con- 
viction, founded  upon  experiences  or  visions,  that  she  is  his 
protecting  intercessory  genius  in  heaven,  as,  without  know- 
ing it,  she  had  on  earth  been  the  guardian  angel  of  his 
youth.  Admitted  now  into  the  unveiled  presence  of  God, 
she  floats  before  the  poet,  and,  as  a  partaker  of  God's  glory, 
her  spirit,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  for  a  finite,  created  being, 
has  become  radiant  with  the  divine  light.  Meanwhile,  by 
continually  directing  his  thoughts  and  will  towards  his 
glorified  love,  Dante  has  entered,  so  to  speak,  into  a  kind  of 
magic  intercourse  with  her,  in  such  a  way  that  she  has 
become  his  teacher,  the  source  of  his  insight  into  things 
divine,  his  guide  in  the  paths  of  theology.  In  his  religious 
studies  he  is  always  accompanied  by  the  thought,  '  She 
already  beholds  and  enjoys  in  blessed  peace  all  that  thou 
here  below,  slowly  and  step  by  step  through  weary  exertions 
of  discursive  thought  and  wide  research,  mayst  win  for  thy- 
self. In  her  spirit  now  is  neither  darkness  nor  doubt, 
nought  save  transparent  light.  There  before  the  throne 
of  God  she  intercedes  for  thee,  her  faithful  one  ;  and  thus 
to  her  thou  art  indebted  for  whatever  from  above  has  fallen 
to  thy  lot  of  light  and  knowledge  of  things  divine,  or  of 


.iv  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  93 

insight  into  the  nature  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ.'  If 
Beatrice  is  commonly  called  the  symbol  of  theology,  the  term 
is  correct  only  under  condition  that  the  scholasticism  of  the 
day,  against  which  Dante  had  much  to  object,  be  excluded, 
and  theology,  as  he  tells  us  himself  in  his  *  Treatise  upon 
Monarchy,'  be  understood  to  mean  the  teaching  which  is 
to  be  drawn  from  the  Bible  and  the  traditions  of  the 
church. 

And  now  the  much- disputed  question  arises,  Who  and 
what  is  Matilda  ?  Historians  no  longer  pretend  that  she 
was  the  Tuscan  Countess,  the  benefactress  of  Gregory  VII., 
who  founded  the  States  of  the  Church.  Our  colleague 
Preger  has  found  the  key  to  the  mystery.9 

To  understand  Dante  thoroughly,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  everything  with  him  is  connected  with  his 
inner  experience.  Many  things  have  been  shown  to  him  in 
visions  of  which  he  sometimes  makes  mention ;  we  per- 
ceive in  him  traces  of  his  ecstatic  moments.  He  himself 
relates  how,  in  moments  of  intense  contemplation,  he  had 
fallen  into  such  a  state  of  complete  abstraction  as  to  become 
entirely  unconscious  of  things  and  persons  around  him. 
Once  he  had  been  rapt  into  a  state  of  such  fervent  thanks- 
giving and  devotion  to  God  for  the  grace  of  salvation  which 
had  been  granted  to  him,  that  he  even  forgot  Beatrice  (the 
evangelical  doctrine  of  salvation).  In  this  he  refers  to  the 
condition  described  by  all  mystics  when  the  soul  feels  it- 
self as  it  were  dissolved  in  God,  and  the  consciousness  of 
the  separate  divine  attributes  and  benefits  disappears.  As 
the  symbol  of  ecstatic  conditions  of  this  kind,  and  the 
visions  appertaining  to  them,  Dante  has  made  choice  of  the 
nun  Mechtilde  or  Matilda.  Virgil,  the  personification  of 
mere  human  unassisted  knowledge,  has  just  left  him  ;  he  is 
now  his  own  king  and  bishop,  but  the  moment  has  not  yet 
arrived  when  Beatrice  will  reveal  herself  to  him  and  when 
the  highest  intuitive  perception  attainable  by  man  of  things 
divine  will  be  disclosed  to  him. 

9  Dante's  Matilda,  an  academical  address.     Munich,  1873. 


94  DANTE   AS   A  PROPHET  iv 

Matilda,  therefore,  is  for  Dante  that  personification  of 
the  perception  of  holiness  which  is  attainable  through 
visions,  and  which  beholds  religious  truths  in  images  and 
allegories.  The  beautiful  flowers  which  the  poet  sees  her 
plucking l  are  images  and  allegorical  visions  of  the  same 
kind  that  are  to  be  found  in  the  book  of  the  blessed  Matilda, 
and  so  unmistakably  affected  was  Dante's  imagination 
thereby  that  many  of  her  images  and  visions  became  in- 
corporated with  his  poem,  or  at  any  rate  left  their  trace 
upon  his  mind.  It  thus  becomes  intelligible  that  she  should 
have  dipped  him  in  the  stream  of  Lethe,  that  is,  that  she 
should  have  elevated  him  into  a  higher  spiritual  con- 
dition, in  which  the  remembrance  of  the  torment  of  sin  was 
lost,  and  that  he  should  extol  her  for  having  reinvigorated 
the  halting  power  of  his  mind  by  vouchsafing  to  him  the 
sweet  draught  from  the  river  Eunoe  (a  serene  disposition 
of  mind  at  peace  with  itself) . 

The  question  whom  does  Dante  signify  by  the  veltro 
has  been  acknowledged  to  be  the  most  difficult  in  all  the 
poem ;  in  fact,  to  be  incapable  of  solution.  Even  his  con- 
temporaries and  earliest  commentators  were  at  a  loss  what 
to  say  on  the  subject,  and  fell  into  fanciful  and  unfounded 
suggestions.  His  son,  Pietro  di  Dante,  knew  nothing  posi- 
tively, and  contented  himself  with  asserting  that  it  was  a 
mistake  to  apply '  'twixt  either  Feltro '  to  two  towns  between 
which  the  birthplace  of  the  deliverer  was  situated.  Yet  this 
is  precisely  what  has  now  been  generally  accepted  in  Ger- 
many, Italy,  and  England.  The  earlier  commentators  down 
to  the  sixteenth  century  are  unanimous  in  the  interpreta- 
tion *  His  land  shall  be  'twixt  either  feltro,'  2  i.e.  he  will  be 
of  lowly  origin,  or,  he  will  belong  to  one  of  the  monastic 
orders  who  are  clothed  in  coarse  cloth  or  felt.  But  modern 
critics  are  so  sure  of  their  opinion,  that,  in  new  editions  of 
the  text,  and  in  translations,  they  take  good  care  through  the 
printed  capital  beginning  the  word  that  the  reader  should 
be  left  no  choice  but  to  receive  it  as  the  name  of  a  town, 

1  Purg.  xxviii.  40.  ~  Inf.  i.  105. 


iv  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  95 

and  therefore  inevitably  to  understand  none  other  than  the 
Prince  of  Verona  to  be  the  promised  apostle  of  poverty  and 
frugality.  The  poet  evidently  carried  his  secret  to  the 
grave,  and  Eambaldi,  about  the  year  1375,  speaks  of  the 
thousands  of  different  interpretations  that  had  already  been 
put  forward.  However,  in  1450  a  commentator  of  the 
'  Inferno,'  Guiniforte  delli  Bargigi,  seems  to  approach  the 
truth.  He  conjectures  that  the  veltro  will  be  a  holy  man, 
who  will  awaken  in  the  hearts  of  the  avaricious  sorrow  and 
penitence  for  their  sins. 

All  attempts  to  decide  upon  any  historical  personage  in 
particular  to  whom  the  poet  referred  and  of  whom  he  ex- 
pected such  wonderful  things  would  now  be  vain.  The  poet 
himself  neither  personally  nor  by  reputation  knew  upon 
whom  his  hopes  were  set.  Nevertheless  he  confidently 
awaited  him  ;  in  accordance  with  his  Joachimistic  views 
Dante  thought  the  epoch  was  at  hand  when  a  new  brother- 
hood would,  under  its  founder,  effect  a  moral  and  religious 
revival  in  Central  Italy. 

The  belief  in  the  Empire  and  the  Papacy  as  two  health- 
giving  institutions  of  which  the  one  would  be  restored 
and  the  other  purified  and  reformed,  formed  the  ground- 
work of  Dante's  teaching  and  that  which  lay  nearest  his 
heart.  But  reform  was  impossible  so  long  as  the  people  of 
Home  and  of  the  Latin  Tuscan  lands,  the  lowlands  3  of  the 
peninsula,  were  not  fitted  to  receive  it,  so  long  as  the  old 
she-wolf,  low,  blind  Avarice,  governed  the  mass  of  mankind. 
Yet  this  country  is  the  place  where  God  has  ordained  that 
emperor  and  pope  should  dwell  and  from  whence  their  rule 
should  proceed.  When  the  veltro  shall  have  finished  his 
work  here,  and  prepared  the  way  for  another  of  God's  in- 
struments, then  will  appear  the  *  Dux '  and  will  complete 
the  work  of  requital,  of  liberation,  and  purification.  Thanks 
to  the  regenerative  and  salutary  influence  of  the  veltro  the 

8  Umile  Italia  Dante  calls  it,  borrowing  the  expression  from  Virgil 
(JEneid,  iii.  522-523).  The  translation  gebeugtes  oder  dcmiithigcs  Italicn 
misses  the  sense. 


96  DANTE   AS  A   PROPHET  iv 

'  Dux '  will  compass  this  end  without  having  recourse  to 
desolating  war.4 

The  veltro  will  subdue  the  she-wolf,  that  old  national 
sin  of  the  Italians,  insatiable  Avarice,  the  root  and  cause  of 
all  evil  and  depravity;  he  will  drive  her  out  of  every  town 
and  hunt  her  back  into  hell  from  whence  she  came.  It  is 
therefore  a  purely  moral  reform  which  is  in  question,  and 
in  those  days  this  could  naturally  be  looked  for  only  through 
religious  means  and  influences  by  means  of  persuasion  and 
of  zealous  pastoral  rule.  A  capitano  with  his  pillaging 
troops  of  mercenaries  was  surely  the  personage  least  fitted 
for  such  a  task. 

Dante  was  a  Joachimist,  but  after  his  own  eclectic 
fashion,  with  the  reservation  which  his  favourite  doctrine 
of  the  divine  right  and  calling  of  the  empire  rendered  in- 
dispensable. Wonderful  to  relate,  he  knows  of  but  one 
prophet  in  the  whole  course  of  Christian  times  since  the 
Apostles,  and  that  one  the  Abbot  Joachim,  to  whom  he 
assigns  a  high  place  in  Paradise,  near  the  Mother  of  the 
Lord  and  next  to  Bonaventura.  The  works  ascribed  to 
Joachim— the  commentaries  on  Jeremiah  and  Isaiah  which 
bear  his  name  were  then  supposed  to  be  genuine — set  forth 
that  the  whole  course  of  human  history  falls  into  three 
great  periods,  the  era  of  the  Father,  followed  (since  the 
birth  of  Christ)  by  that  of  the  Son,  and  finally  by  that  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Within  these  three  periods  seven  other 
periods  (status}  are  distinguishable.  In  the  sixth  period, 

4  A  remarkable  passage  is  to  be  found  in  a  printed  work  of  Armarnuno 
of  Bologna,  dedicated  to  Bossone  da  Gubbio  and  belonging  to  the  year  1325, 
four  years,  therefore,  after  Dante's  death.  The  wickedness  of  Tuscany  was 
the  cause  of  there  being  so  much  sin  in  the  world.  For  the  Tuscans  were 
more  popular  amongst  mankind  than  any  other  nation.  Ma  quel  gran  veltro 
che  caccerd  la  lupa  della  quale  disse  Dante,  fard  ancora  scoprire  iutti  i  loro 
difetti  chiari.  Elsewhere  he  calls  to  mind  the  dissensions  of  the  church, 
and  adds  :  Ma  come  dice  Merlino,  tutte  finiranno  poi  per  la  caccia  di  quel 
forte  veltro,  che  caccerd  quelV  affannata  lupa,  onde  sorge  tanta  crudeltade. 
Thus  a  prediction  of  Merlin  appropriating  the  veltro  of  Dante  had  already 
found  popular  expression.  See  Bongiovanni,  Prolegomeni  del  nuovo  Comento. 
Forli,  1858,  p.  257, 


iv  DANTE   AS   A   PEOPHET  (J7 

which  was  reckoned  to  have  begun  or  to  be  immediately 
impending,  heavy  judgments  would  befall  the  corrupt 
churches  of  the  West,  but  a  new  spiritual  power  would  at 
the  same  time  be  introduced  in  the  shape  of  an  order,  the 
parvuli  of  the  Latin  Church,  which  would  abstain  from  all 
worldly  possessions.  This  is  to  be  a  society  living  under  a 
severe  rule  of  discipline  and  self-denial,  and  by  preaching 
and  example  it  is  to  bring  about  a  widely  extended  conver- 
sion and  regeneration. 

It  seems  as  if  Dante  may  be  alluding  by  the  veltro  to 
the  future  founder  of  this  order,  or  perhaps  to  the  order 
itself.5  The  image  of  the  greyhound  was  the  more  familiar 
to  him  that  the  Dominicans  had  already  chosen  for  the 
device  of  their  order  a  dog  with  a  burning  torch  in  his 
mouth  ;  this  represented  a  dream  which  the  mother  of 
Dominic  was  supposed  to  have  had  before  his  birth. 

With  what  warmth,  animation,  and  rapture  does  Dante 
describe  the  bride  espoused  by  St.  Francis,  his  beloved 
Poverty,  who  for  eleven  hundred  years  had  been  without  a 
suitor ! 6  No  one  else  in  the  time  immediately  preceding  his 
own  does  he  extol  so  highly.  Yet  despite  the  emphatic  ex- 
pressions of  admiration  for  the  order,  he  does  not  omit  to 
portray  the  terrible  falling  away  of  the  greater  portion  of 
its  members  from  the  teaching  and  example  of  their  founder. 
'  There  are  a  few,  in  truth,  who  cleave  to  their  shepherd  ; 
but  these  are  so  few,  a  little  stuff  may  furnish  out  their 
cloaks.' 7 

Thus  he,  like  the  pseudo- Joachim,  reckons  none  but  the 
Mystics  as  the  genuine  disciples  of  St.  Francis.  Dante  must 
certainly  have  heard  the  elders  of  his  generation  describe 
the  powerful  movement  which  the  Minorites  had  stirred  up 
in  Italy  between  1230  and  1260.  He  must  have  heard  and 
even  himself  had  opportunity  of  observing  what  a  power  lay 
in  the  preaching  of  these  men,  who  could  influence  and 

5  Sive  solus  appareat  sive  cum  sociis,  habebit  magnam  potestatem  in 
loquendo  verbum  Dei,  are  the  words  of  Joachim's  Commentary  on  the 
Apocalypse,  198  b. 

*  Parad.  xi.  61.  r  Parad.  xi.  123. 

H 


98  DANTE   AS  A  PKOPHET  iv 

reform  the  life  even  of  the  people  in  the  towns.  He  who 
recognised  in  the  old  she-wolf  the  prevailing  sin  of  avarice, 
the  crying  vice  of  the  times,  and  who  in  a  letter  to  the 
cardinals  wrote  '  All  have  taken  Avarice  to  wife,  who  can 
never,  like  Christian  Love,  be  the  mother  of  piety  and 
justice,  but  is  the  mother  of  profligacy  and  injustice,'  was 
not  likely  to  expect  the  remedy  for  the  evil  to  come  from  a 
pope,  nor  from  a  warlike  prince  or  capitano  whose  thoughts 
were  continually  bent  on  fresh  conquests. 

Dante  certainly  never  contemplated  that  the  task  of  the 
veltro,  the  vanquishing  of  the  she-wolf,  would  be  accom- 
plished by  a  pope.  History  told  him  of  no  pope  who  had  really 
brought  about  any  permanent  reform  in  religion  or  morals. 
He  meets  with  two  cardinals  in  Paradise,  but  not  a  single 
pope,  not  one  at  least  who  appears  to  him  worthy  of  mention 
or  whom  he  could  have  selected  as  a  mouthpiece  for  instruc- 
tion, warning,  or  prophecy.  A  pope  like  Gregory  VII., 
supposing  Dante  to  be  acquainted  with  his  history,  must 
have  been  displeasing  to  him,  as  having  been  the  opponent, 
not  only  of  the  emperor,  but  of  the  empire  itself,  and  as 
having  been  the  cause  of  its  decay.  Every  pope  since  then 
as  a  matter  of  fact  had  followed  more  or  less  in  the  foot- 
steps of  Gregory  with  regard  to  the  empire. 

The  opinion  now  almost  generally  adopted  is  that  by 
the  veltro,  Can  Grande  della  Scala,  Prince  of  Verona,  is 
intended,  at  whose  hospitable  court  Dante  for  several  years 
found  a  refuge.  The  poet  certainly  esteemed  him  highly. 
But  the  very  manner  in  which  the  poet  celebrates  and 
praises  him  makes  it  impossible  that  he  could  have  contem- 
plated his  acting  the  part  of  the  veltro,  and  becoming  the 
author  of  a  moral  reformation  in  Central  Italy.  His  deeds 
are  to  be  worthy  of  remark ;  he  will  care  neither  for  gold 
nor  hardship  ;  through  him  kingdoms  will  become  poor,  and 
the  poor  rich.  But  of  any  higher  vocation  pointing  to  a 
great  moral  refcrmation — to  the  overcoming,  that  is  to  say, 
of  the  she-wolf — there  is  not  a  hint.  Can  Grande  remained 
entirely  aloof  from  the  events  of  Central  Italy.  His  sue- 


iv  DANTE   AS   A   PKOPHET  99 

cesses  were  confined  to  conquests  in  the  north-eastern 
corner  of  the  peninsula.  Dante,  besides,  had  plenty  of 
cause  to  extol  his  generosity  and  energy,  and  to  remain 
silent  about  other  qualities  which  would  have  been  indis- 
pensable for  the  veltro.  The  eye-witness  Ferreto  of 
Vicenza8  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  that  Can  Grande  was  a 
heartless  insolent  tyrant,  who  gave  over  towns  which  he 
had  won  through  perfidy  to  be  plundered  by  his  rapacious 
mercenaries,  broke  up  their  civil  administration,  set  the 
villages  far  and  wide  in  flames,  and  caused  the  peasants  to 
be  dragged  into  the  towns,  where  they  pined  in  confinement 
until  they  found  the  means  of  ransom.  Dante's  veltro  is 
to  be  maintained  by  power,  wisdom,  and  love,  that  is  to  say, 
by  the  substance  of  the  Triune  Deity.  Is  it  conceivable 
that  the  poet  could  have  stooped  to  such  vile  flattery,  and 
thus  branded  his  work  with  infamy  ?  9 

We  are  acquainted  with  the  fragment  of  a  work,  De 
semine  scripturarumtl  composed  in  1205,  in  which  there  is 
a  prophecy  that  in  a  hundred  years,  beginning  from  1215 
(exactly  at  the  time  therefore  that  Dante  was  writing  his 
poem),  the  Holy  Land  would  be  reconquered  and  the  church 
cleansed  from  simony.  Until  then  the  cunning  malicious 
Dragon  would  hold  the  people  of  God  in  captivity  in  the 
Koman  land.  But  the  cleansing  of  the  Temple  (the 
church),  by  driving  out  the  buyers  and  sellers,  would  be 
accomplished  amid  fearful  convulsions  and  national  wars, 
resulting  in  general  desolation  by  fire  and  sword  until 
universal  distress  and  poverty  would  perforce  put  an  end 
to  high-handed  simony.  Dante  indubitably  had  this  pro- 
phecy in  his  mind.  From  it  he  has  borrowed  the  puzzle 
of  the  numerical  signification  of  the  letters,  and  the 

8  Muratori,  S.S.  rer.  Ital.  ix.  p.  1060  ff. 

9  Neither  is  it  conceivable  that  the  poet  who  exalted  the  Latin  races  so 
far  above  the  people  of  Lombard  origin,  and  who  wrote  Pone  sanguis  Longo- 
bardorum,  coadductam  barbariem,  et  si  quid  de  Trojanorum  Latinorumque 
sanguine  superest,  illis  cede — could  have  assigned  to  a  Lombard  capitano 
the  office  of  converting  this  high  and  noble  race  from  avarice  to  frugality 

1  Karajan,  Zur  Geschichte  des  Concils  von  Lyon,  p.  104. 

H  2 


100  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  iv 

symbol  of  the  Dragon  as  Simony.  But  he  amends  it.  He 
cannot  bring  himself  to  believe  that  Italy,  already  desolated 
and  impoverished  by  eighty  years  of  warfare,  will  incur  so 
terrible  a  penalty  simply  through  the  fault  of  the  hierarchy  ; 
for  this  would  also  be  opposed  to  the  expectation  he  has 
formed  of  the  coming  of  an  emperor  who  should  liberate 
Italy  without  damage  to  flock  or  field.2 

The  prospect  of  an  emperor  coming  from  the  North 
and  fulfilling  the  judgments  against  France  and  the  venal 
church  of  the  papacy  is  also  unfolded  in  the  Joachimist 
works  composed  by  the  Mystics,  only  that  the  latter,  being 
Guelphs,  foresee  in  him  a  tyrant  and  destroyer,  like  the 
Assyrian  or  Chaldean  Monarchs,3 

I  have  styled  Dante's  epic  fiction  a  theodicy,  i.e.  an 
exposition  of  the  divine  plan  with  respect  to  the  universe, 
as  Dante  conceived  that  plan  to  be,  Had  he,  in  the  actual 
state  of  things  and  their  reflection  in  his  own  mind,  con- 
fined his  attention  to  the  immediate  past  or  present,  he 
might  have  been  driven  to  take  refuge  in  a  gloomy  pessi- 
mism, or  in  blank  despair.  But  his  anticipations  concerning 
the  future  preserved  him  from  this,  and  enabled  him  to 
fulfil  his  mission  for  the  enlightenment  and  improvement 
of  the  world. 

Prophecy  thrives  especially  in  times  and  under  circum- 
stances where  incongruities  have  sprung  up  between  the 
truth  and  the  ideas  and  expectations  of  mankind ;  where 
the  national  conscience  comes  into  conflict  with  the  actual 

8  Purg.  xxxiii.  51. 

3  As  an  example  of  the  Joachimistic  vaticinations  which  find  an  echo 
in  Dante's  work,  one  may  cite  the  following  passage  from  the  Commentary 
on  Jeremiah  attributed  to  Joachim  :  Futurum  est  prorsus  ut,  orta  discordia 
inter  principes,  non  tantum  ab  imperio  ecclesia  corruat,  sed  etiam  a  Galli- 
cano  regno  diffidatur,  et  unde  fnit  erecta  et  provecta  in  gloriam,  inde  dejecta 
et  despecta  veniat  in  rapinam.  Then  a  terrible  prediction  is  repeated  against 
the  church  (the  papacy)  concerning  the  punishment  which  would  be  received 
at  the  hands  of  an  emperor  proceeding  from  the  North.  It  is  also  foretold 
in  the  same  place  (f.  46)  that  the  nobility  as  well  as  the  clergy  in  France 
would  at  one  time  declare  themselves  against  the  pope.  Dante  saw  the 
fulfilment  of  this  prophecy  in  1303. 


iv  DANTE   AS   A  PROPHET  101 

situation,  or  where  the  religious  ideas  of  the  time  or  of  the 
nation  demand  a  state  of  things  in  flagrant  opposition  to. 
existing  conditions.  Dante  was  forced  into  becoming  a 
prophet  because,  convinced  as  he  was  that  the  empire 
and  the  papacy  were  the  two  pillars  ordained  by  God  to 
support  law  and  order  upon  earth,  he  yet  saw  the  world  in 
those  days  corrupted  by  their  having  become  the  very 
opposite  to  what  they  should  have  been.  But  Dante,  whose 
poem  gives  marvellous  proofs  of  a  mind  formed  for  cool 
deliberation,  was  not  the  man  to  shape  his  predictions  of 
the  future  merely  after  the  dictates  of  his  own  fancy.  He 
cannot  be  charged  with  having  merely  invested  his  own 
individual  wishes  and  needs  with  the  garb  of  prophecy.  He 
did  that  which  was  so  constantly  done  at  that  time;  he 
appropriated  predictions  which  were  partly  already  current, 
partly  drawn  from  Biblical  interpretations,  and  clothed 
them  in  the  beautiful  imagery  of  his  poetic  fancy,  veiling 
them  occasionally  in  designedly  enigmatical  form.  The 
comprehension  of  them  is  facilitated  if  the  facts  are  ap- 
proached partly  in  the  spirit  of  the  poet,  partly  with  a  mind 
attuned  to  the  conceptions  of  the  time.  In  the  first  place, 
Dante  was  desirous  of  combating  a  prophecy  which  the 
Guelphs  had  set  afloat  within  the  last  fifty  years,  and  which, 
sometimes  under  Merlin's  name,  sometimes  under  the  name 
of  a  Sibyl,  set  forth  that  at  the  death  of  Frederick  II.  the 
Koman  Empire  had  become  extinct,  nevermore  to  be  revived, 
Next  we  must  consider  Dante's  belief  in  the  influence 
exercised  by  the  heavenly  bodies  and  constellations,  and 
the  intelligent  beings  (the  angels)  who  direct  them,  over 
earthly  things.  The  revolution  of  the  stars  exercises  over 
mankind  a  direction  and  impulse  that  generally  predeter- 
mines or  turns  the  scale,  but  in  such  a  manner  that  the 
individual,  as  a  free  agent,  can  by  the  strength  of  his  will 
oppose  this  influence  of  the  stars.  Dante'  consequently 
arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  a  universal  transformation 
might  at  any  moment  take  place  if,  he  remarks,  when  fore-. 


102  DANTE   AS   A   PKOPHET  iv 

telling  the  appearance  of  '  the  Dux,'  '  the  stars  be  e'en  now 
approaching.' 4 

Furthermore,  it  must  be  observed  that  Dante  goes  upon 
the  accepted  opinion  that  the  end  of  the  world  was  at  hand. 
He  gives  vent  to  this  idea  by  saying  that  he  found  almost 
all  the  places  destined  for  the  blessed  in  Paradise  already 
occupied,  so  that  only  a  small  number  could  yet  gain  admis- 
sion. That  universal  changes  and  mighty  proofs  of  divine 
power  and  justice  would  be  manifested  more  and  more  in 
proportion  as  the  end  of  time  drew  near,  had  at  all  times 
been  the  general  belief  of  the  church — an  expectation  natu- 
rally shared  by  Dante  himself. 

Dante  possessed  a  rare  cultivation  of  mind,  and  his 
learning  was  so  comprehensive  and  various  that,  if  we  ex- 
cept Roger  Bacon,  who  belonged  to  an  earlier  period,  very 
few  can  be  found  who  came  up  to  him,  and  none  who  sur- 
passed him.  We  behold  with  wonder  the  wealth  of  classical 
and  scholastic  knowledge  displayed  in  the  '  Convito.'  Aris- 
totle was  his  chief  master,  although  he  was  acquainted  with 
him  only  through  Latin  translations.  Boethius,  Cicero, 
Seneca,  ranked  next  as  his  favourites.  He  was  familiar 
with  the  literature  of  physics,  jurisprudence,  and  theology. 
One  important  gap  in  his  knowledge,  however,  of  which  he 
himself  seems  to  have  been  little  aware,  makes  itself  felt ; 
the  historical  sense  and  acquaintance  with  past  events  is 
wanting.  This  defect  he  shared  without  doubt  with  his 
contemporaries  ;  but  it  becomes  only  too  manifest  as  a  dis- 
turbing influence  in  a  work,  which,  in  its  scheme  for  judg- 
ing the  world,  divides  the  whole  of  mankind  into  the  saved 
or  eternally  lost,  and  with  audacious  confidence  undertakes 
to  determine  the  future.  As  he  knows  nothing  of  a  boun- 
dary line  between  myth,  legend,  and  history,  ^neas,  Dido, 
the  giant  Cacus,  and  the  Trojan  Eipheus  are  to  him  historical 
persons  as  genuine  as  Caesar  or  Augustus.  He,  as  every 
one  else  at  that  time,  takes  the  Donation  of  Constantine 
for  a  fact,  however  much  of  a  stumbling-block  it  may  seem 

4  Purg.  xxxiii.  41. 


iv  DANTE   AS  A  PROPHET  103 

to  him ;  and  he  thus  betrays  the  fact  that  the  whole  history 
of  the  period  from  the  fourth  to  the  eighth  centuries  waa 
either  unknown  or  incomprehensible  to  him.  Dante  gives 
credence  to  the  Guelphic  fable  by  which  the  mother  of 
Frederick  II.  was  said  to  have  been  a  nun  ;  and  makes  Hugh 
Capet,  the  founder  of  the  royal  dynasty  of  France,  to  have 
been  the  son  of  a  Paris  butcher.  His  ignorance  leads 
to  place  Justinian,  Gratian,  and  Fulk  of  Marseilles  in 
Paradise.  He  draws  his  information,  too,  from  an  impure 
source  when  he  assigns  the  place  of  a  heretic  in  hell  to  the 
blameless  Pope  Anastasius.  Again,  when  he  sharply  repri- 
mands the  two  first  Habsburg  monarchs,  Eudolf  and  Albert, 
and  almost  anathematises  the  latter,  for  forgetting  their  duty 
as  emperors  in  not  undertaking  the  journey  to  Italy,  it  is 
because  he  does  not  know  that  it  was  the  pope  who  had 
rendered  the  journey  impossible  for  the  two  princes. 

It  is  by  no  means  to  be  wondered  at  that  Dante,  in 
accordance  with  the  character  and  spirit  of  the  times, 
should  have  been  misled  in  historical  matters,  or  that  he 
should  have  mistaken  stories  of  heroes  for  genuine  history. 
The  laws  of  historical  progress  were  as  good  as  unknown 
to  him,  and  he  was  therefore  ready  to  attribute  slowly 
developing  conditions  to  the  enterprise  of  an  individual  or 
even  to  an  isolated  act.  Owing  to  his  Joachimist  views, 
and  belief  in  the  power  of  the  stars  over  human  things, 
Dante's  predictions  outstripped  actual  occurrences  in  the 
church.  Whether  or  how  far  ecstasies,  and  possibly  dreams 
which  he  deemed  to  be  inspired,  contributed  thereunto, 
must  remain  uncertain,  as  the  poem  supplies  only  hints, 
and  no  safe  basis  for  an  opinion.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  Beers  of  both  sexes,  who  predict  the  future  whilst 
in  a  condition  of  ecstasy,  were  both  then  and  afterwards 
highly  honoured,  and  occasionally  received  the  sanction 
of  the  church ;  witness  St.  Hildegard  and  Dante's  con- 
temporary, the  Dominican  prophet  Kobert  of  Uzes,  who 
in  the  year  1293  was  examined  at  a  conference  of  the 
order  in  Carcassonne  and  received  permission  to  come 


104  DANTE   AS   A   PKOPHET  iv 

forward  publicly  as  a  prophet ;  whereupon  he  travelled 
throughout  Italy,  France,  and  Germany,  preaching  and 
prophesying,  and  threatened  Boniface  VIII.  with  divine 
chastisement. 

In  numerous  passages  scattered  over  the  three  parts 
of  the  '  Commedia,'  and  sometimes  in  a  trenchant  tone  of 
profound  indignation  and  with  words  that  scorch  like  fire, 
Dante  depicts  the  prevailing  corruption  of  the  times,  of 
which  he  considers  the  popes  to  be  the  chief  authors.  It 
is  they  who,  through  their  evil  example  and  constant  mis- 
use of  religion  as  a  means  to  serve  their  own  cupidity  and 
ambition,  have  utterly  corrupted  both  clergy  and  laity  and 
led  them  to  a  like  destruction.  The  papacy  has  become 
a  power  continually  exciting  to  war,  and  itself  carrying  on 
war ;  it  wields  the  secular  sword  together  with  the  spiritual 
weapons  of  the  Ban  and  the  Interdict;  it  places  the 
spiritual  symbol  of  the  keys  upon  its  war  banners.  Of 
the  members  of  one  and  the  same  church  it  treats  one 
half  (the  Guelphs)  as  the  saved,  and  the  other  half  (the 
Ghibellines)  as  foes  predestined  to  be  lost.  The  Papal 
Curia  has  been  turned  into  a  market  where  everything  is 
for  sale,  and  Christ  is  daily  put  up  for  auction.  Bishops 
and  priests  have  taken  pattern  by  the  papacy  and  given 
themselves  up  like  servers  in  idol- temples  to  the  worship 
of  mammon.  Ecclesiastical  ordinances,  the  administra- 
tion of  justice,  the  empire  and  the  imperial  power,  all 
alike  have  been  ruined  by  these  successors  of  the  Apostle 
Peter ;  even  the  rites  of  religion  have  been  made  of 
none  effect  through  their  false  and  lying  privileges,  and 
ravening  wolves  are  everywhere  to  be  seen  in  the  garb  of 
shepherds.  '  My  place  of  burial,'  says  the  Apostle,  '  is 
full  of  the  stench  of  blood.'5  For  the  popes  '  write  but 
to  cancel.'6  All  that  stands  in  their  way — oaths,  vows, 
treaties,  obligations,  the  enactments  of  the  early  church, 

*  Gomp.  Inf.  xix.  104 ;  Purg.  xvi.  103 ;  Parad.  xviii.  121-132 ;  xxvii. 
20-25  and  40-55. 

6  Parad.  xviii.  126. 


iv  DANTE   AS  A  PROPHET  105 

the  decrees  of  their  predecessors — all  that  it  would  profit 
them  to  sweep  away,  they  cancel. 

The  majority  of  readers  find  it  difficult  to  understand 
that  Dante  should  so  exalt  the  papacy  and  nevertheless 
pour  such  obloquy  upon  it  as  it  then  was — obloquy 
mingled  with  the  heaviest  accusations  and  reproaches. 
Where  the  dignity  and  power  of  religious  matters  is  con- 
cerned, he  is  a  son  of  his  time,  the  disciple  of  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  the  theologians  of  his  day  generally.  He 
does  homage  to  the  sacred  keys  which  Peter  transmitted 
to  the  pope ;  the  pope  is  the  chief  shepherd  whom  all  aro 
bound  to  follow.  But  the  sublime  power  committed  to 
him  has  been  abused  and  misapplied  until  it  has  been 
turned  to  a  curse,  and  weighs  like  an  intolerable  yoke  upon 
the  Christian  world.  The  office  nevertheless  must  be  held 
in  reverence.  Dante  describes  the  attack  upon  Boniface 
VIII.  in  Anagni,  and  the  indignities  heaped  upon  him, 
with  expressions  of  the  deepest  abhorrence,  although  him- 
self regarding  Boniface  as  no  rightful  pope,  but  a  usurper. 

The  ill-will  felt  by  Dante  against  the  papacy  and  the 
clergy  takes  a  fourfold  shape.  He  is  wroth  with  them  as 
a  Christian,  as  an  Italian,  as  a  partisan  of  the  empire, 
and  as  a  professor  of  the  rule  of  poverty.  For  two  cen- 
turies accusations  had  been  levelled  from  all  sides  against 
the  church,  that  through  the  example  of  Eome  and  the 
Curia  everything  had  become  a  matter  of  sale,  and  the 
whole  of  ecclesiastical  life  tainted  with  simony.  The  com- 
plaint was  raised  by  all  nations  and  classes,  and  not  least 
by  the  clergy  themselves,  and  we  find  scarcely  an  attempt 
to  gloze  the  matter  over,  much  less  to  deny  it,  although 
according  to  the  church's  tenets  it  involved  the  most 
fearful  consequences.  Hence  upon  this  point  the  poet 
merely  echoed  the  opinion  of  the  time,  and  the  observa- 
tions of  the  older  commentators  prove  that  no  one  thought 
it  at  all  extraordinary. 

As  an  Italian  Dante  cherished  a  grudge  against  the 
popes,  because  their  policy,  the  wars  they  had  carried  on, 


106  DANTE   AS  A  PEOPHET  iv 

and  the  foreigners  by  whom  the  country  had  consequently 
been  overrun,  had  caused  the  ruin  of  the  peninsula  and  had 
divided  its  inhabitants  for  an  indefinite  period  into  two 
hostile  parties,  which,  so  long  as  they  existed,  forbade  any 
hope  of  peace,  and  who  had  produced  civil  war  in  every 
town.  A  series  of  French  popes  had  already  managed  to 
make  the  Eoman  chair  subservient  to  the  interests  of  the 
Angevin  princes.  And  now  the  Curia  under  Clement  V. 
had  taken  up  its  abode  upon  Gallic  soil  and  from  Avignon 
continued  its  customary  policy  in  Italy  entirely  to  the 
advantage  of  the  French.  '  Cahorsines  and  Gascons,'  says 
Dante,  '  prepare  to  quaff  our  blood.' 7 

As  a  warm  partisan  of  the  monarchy,  as  he  terms  the 
empire,  Dante  felt  both  sorrow  and  wrath  at  seeing  that 
the  popes  had  ruined  an  institution  which  was  of  all  things 
one  of  the  most  indispensable  for  Italy.  '  One  sun,'  he 
remarks,  '  has  extinguished  the  other,  and  now  the  sword 
is  grafted  on  the  crook.' 8  So  was  it  in  very  deed.  Within 
sixty  years  the  popes,  by  preventing  hereditary  suc- 
cession to  the  throne,  and  through  the  astute  policy  by 
which  they  fostered  an  interregnum,  as  well  as  by  tamper- 
ing with  the  elections  by  means  of  their  dependants,  the 
ecclesiastical  electors,  had  reduced  the  old  genuine  imperial 
power  to  the  merest  phantom  and  had  deprived  the  empire 
for  ever  of  all  vitality  and  power. 

Thus  far  Dante's  thoughts  and  words  were  in  accord- 
ance with  those  of  his  contemporaries.  German  poets  such 
as  Walter  von  der  Vogelweide,  Freidank,  and  others,  had  a 
century  before  perceived  the  course  things  were  taking, 
lamenting  and  denouncing  them.  And  now  an  additional 
fatality  had  occurred,  which,  in  the  eyes  of  Dante  and  very 
many  of  his  contemporaries,  filled  up  the  measure  of 
Kome's  iniquity.  In  the  East  all  was  lost.  The  Latino- 
Byzantine  Empire  had  crumbled  to  pieces.  The  possession 
of  the  Holy  Places,  the  Christian  principalities  in  Pales- 
tine, all  that,  by  untold  sacrifices,  had  been  fought  for 

"  Parad.  xxvii.  55.  s  Purg.  xvi.  112. 


iv  DANTE  AS  A  PKOPHET  107 

and  won  during  the  last  two  hundred  years,  had  now  been 
forfeited  and  destroyed,  and  it  was  only  too  apparent  that 
the  chief  blame  for  this  annihilation  of  Christian  hopes 
rested  upon  the  popes.  The  wars  which  they  had  perpetu- 
ally carried  on  or  instigated,  the  squandering  upon  alien 
objects  of  the  funds  collected  for  the  Crusades,  the  yielding 
to  the  dynastic  and  territorial  interests  of  the  two  Capet 
lines,  the  want  of  military  organisation,  and  the  perversion 
to  other  purposes  of  the  forces  destined  for  the  war  in  the 
East,  had  led  to  results  which  to  the  feelings  of  that  gene- 
ration were  equally  painful  and  humiliating.  God's  judg- 
ment was  perceived  in  these  things ;  the  prolonged  struggle 
between  Christ  and  Mohammed  seemed  to  have  terminated 
in  favour  of  the  Arabian  prophet.  For  the  sake  of  annihi- 
lating the  house  of  Hohenstaufen,  of  breaking  the  German 
power  in  Italy,  and  bringing  the  peninsula  into  bondage 
partly  to  France  and  partly  to  the  papacy,  the  Mohamme- 
dans had  been  permitted  to  conquer,  and  to  establish  their 
rule  in  the  Holy  Land.  Dante  only  casually  alludes  to 
this  in  his  poem,  but  he  knew  the  general  opinion  and 
feeling,  and  knew  also  how  deeply  shaken  the  old  feeling 
of  reverence  for  the  papal  chair  had  been.9 

The  attitude  which  our  poet  assumes  towards  Boni- 
face VIII.  requires  particular  explanation.  Gregorovius,1 
borrowing  an  illustration  from  the  Koman  priest  Tosti, 
says  that  Dante  bound  the  soul  of  Boniface  to  the  tri- 
umphal car  of  his  wrath  as  a  Ghibelline,  and  dragged 
him  nine  times  round  the  crater  of  hell.  Serious  excep- 
tion, however,  might  be  taken  against  this  representation, 
although  it  has  met  with  the  approval  of  many  other 
writers.  First,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  man  under 
whose  reign  the  journey  described  in  the  poem  took  place, 
and  upon  whose  words  and  acts  the  fate  of  Italy  and 
Germany  at  that  moment  hung,  should  be  frequently  in 

9  Inf.  xxvii.  87,  where  Pope  Boniface  is  charged  with  making  war,  not 
against  the  Saracens,  but  only  against  Christians. 
1  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Bom,  2  Aufl.,  1556. 


108  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  iv 

Dante's  mind.  Secondly,  Dante  does  not  assign  to  Boni- 
face a  place  in  hell  as  the  head  of  the  Guelphs  and  because 
of  his  political  conduct,  but  purely  on  account  of  his 
crimes  against  religion,  and  for  simony;  and  he  treats 
other  popes  in  the  same  way.  Thirdly,  in  the  poet's  eyes, 
Boniface  was  not  a  legitimate  pope,  but  a  usurper  who 
had  forced  his  way  to  the  throne  by  cunning  and  vio- 
lence. Dante,  in  common  with  many  purists  and  theo- 
logians, regarded  the  bull  of  Celestine  V.,  confirming  the 
popes  in  the  hitherto  unrecognised  and  unexercised  right 
of  resignation,  as  null  and  void,  and  he  was  logically 
right.  For  the  popes  themselves  had  declared  the  bond 
which  unites  a  bishop  or  pope  to  his  church  to  be  indis- 
soluble by  the  law  of  God,  and  least  of  all  could  it  befit 
the  Vicegerent  of  God  upon  earth  arbitrarily  to  sever  that 
bond,  and  to  emancipate  himself  from  the  sacred  duties 
upon  which  he  had  once  voluntarily  entered.  This  is  the 
reason  why  the  Apostle  Peter  charges  the  poet  to  announce 
upon  earth  that  in  God's  sight  the  papal  chair  is  now 
vacant,  and  its  occupant  only  an  interloper.  Finally, 
Dante  had  witnessed  the  unprecedented  spectacle  of  pro- 
ceedings opened  with  much  pomp,  and  evidence  taken, 
against  the  late  pope  by  his  successor;  he  knew  that  in 
Avignon  witnesses  of  high  standing,  amongst  them  men  of 
rank,  both  Italian  and  French,  who  had  been  in  immediate 
attendance  on  the  pope,  had  sworn  to  worse  things  than 
any  that  are  recorded  in  the  '  Divina  Commedia.'  It  ought 
rather  to  be  said  that  Dante  out  of  reverence  for  the  office 
had  passed  over  much  in  silence. 

Many  reflections  have  been  made  even  recently  upon 
Dante's  verdict  upon  the  predecessor  of  Boniface,  Celes- 
tine V.  It  has  seemed  scarcely  possible  that  the  poet 
should  have  treated  the  humble,  pious  man  who  resigned 
the  papacy  from  the  feeling  of  incapacity,  with  such 
severity.  Vilta,  cowardice,  is  the  reproach  which  he  casts 
upon  him  when  he  sets  him  among  the  throng  of  shame - 
beladen  souls,  hateful  alike  to  God  and  His  enemies — 


iv  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  109 

wretches  who  have  never  truly  lived  ;  2  and  this  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  opinion  of  Celestine's  contemporaries, 
who  honoured  him  as  a  saint,  a  proof  of  which  Dante  him- 
self lived  to  see  in  his  canonisation  by  Clement  V. 

Celestine,  in  Dante's  eyes,  had  received  a  high  mission 
from  God  ;  it  had  seemed  like  a  miracle  that  the  poor 
hermit  monk  should  suddenly  be  raised  to  the  chair  of 
St.  Peter,  and  placed  in  possession  of  the  greatest  earthly 
power.  He  ought  to  have  been  foremost  in  putting  his 
hand  to  the  great  reformation  ;  he  should  have  dedicated 
the  order,  which  he  had  founded,  to  that  purpose,  and 
then  verily  he  would  have  become  the  true  veltro.  Out  of 
cowardice  he  had  rejected  the  sacred  mission,  and  betrayed 
himself  and  the  church  to  a  man  whose  equal  in  wicked- 
ness could  scarcely  be  found.  A  well-known  contemporary 
of  Dante,  the  poet  Ubertino  da  Casale,  the  most  gifted 
amongst  the  Mystics  of  those  days,  has  passed  a  judg- 
ment upon  Celestine  exactly  similar  to  that  of  Dante, 
excepting  that  he  throws  no  doubt  upon  the  personal 
holiness  of  the  man,  and  expresses  his  blame  in  the  mildest 
terms.3 

It  is  historically  incorrect,  and  prevents  a  just  appre- 
ciation of  the  poem,  to  portray  Dante  as  an  ardent  par- 
tisan of  the  Ghibellines.  In  the  current  acceptation  of  the 
term  he  was  not  so.  In  his  youth  he  had  borne  arms 
as  a  citizen  of  Florence  upon  the  side  of  the  Guelphs,  and 
had  been  sent  into  banishment  as  a  moderate,  white  Guelph 
by  the  black  Guelphs,  who  were  in  favour  of  the  French. 
Henceforth  he  determined,  in  so  far  as  this  was  possible 
for  a  man  with  neither  home  nor  resources,  and  who  was 
driven  from  place  to  place  seeking  protection  and  favour, 
to  attach  himself  to  no  party.  Unwearied  in  the  desire 
to  bring  about  his  own  recall  to  Florence,  he  was  driven 
occasionally  to  take  part  with  the  Ghibellines,  and  was 

2  Inf.  in.  60. 

3  Arbor  vita.  Crucifixes  (Veneticis),  i.  4,  c.  36.     He  says  that  he  prays 
Christ  daily  ut  educat  sponsam  de  manu  adulteri.    His  work  was  written  in 
1305. 


110  DANTE   AS   A  PROPHET  iv 

frequently  galled  by  the  discovery  that  such  an  alliance 
might  throw  him  into  worthless  and  vile  company.4  In  the 
Guelphs  he  saw  the  adversaries  of  the  imperial  power,  who 
carried  out  their  own  selfish  ends  with  the  aid  of  the  pope 
and  the  Franco -Angevin  party,  and  combined  with  the 
enemies  of  Italy  to  convert  that  country  into  a  bloody 
battlefield.  To  the  Ghibellines  Dante  must  often  have 
appeared  as  a  Guelph,  whilst  the  Guelphs,  as  often  as  he 
declared  against  them,  must  have  accounted  him  a  Ghibel- 
line.  The  last  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  Bavenna 
under  the  protection  and  in  the  service  of  a  prince  of 
Guelphic  leanings,  Count  Guido  Novello  da  Polenta.  Upon 
the  whole  it  may  be  said  of  Dante  that  whilst  intellectu- 
ally he  excelled  most,  perhaps  all,  of  his  contemporaries, 
he  was  emphatically  a  man  of  his  day.  Certain  Joachi- 
mistic  views  he  shared  with  only  a  small  minority,  and 
from  these  again  he  differed  as  to  the  empire. 

His  opinions  upon  ecclesiastical  affairs  were  essentially 
the  echo  of  the  public  sentiments,  and  they  are  confirmed 
by  the  writings  of  even  cardinals  and  bishops,  as  well  as 
by  the  memorials  drawn  up  for  the  Councils  of  1274  and 
1311,  by  Bishops  Bruno  of  Olmutz,  Durando  of  Mende,  and 
Le  Maire  of  Angers.  A  commentary  in  confirmation  of 
Dante's  descriptions  and  denunciations  might  easily  be 
compiled  out  of  these  and  from  the  memoirs  of  Petrus 
Dubois,  the  writings  of  Eoger  Bacon,  Bonaventura,  and 
Alvaro  Pelayo.  Dante  indeed  is  silent  upon  much  that 
these  ecclesiastical  witnesses  put  forward,  often  with  for- 
cible colouring.  For  the  fact  must  not  be  overlooked — 
Dante  was  a  layman,  besides  being  an  exile  without  office 
or  dignity,  dependent  upon  the  protection  afforded  him  by 
strangers.  He  wrote  at  a  time  when  laity  and  clergy  were 
parted  by  a  chasm  broad  and  deep,  when  a  pope  had 
formally  declared  it  to  be  an  everlasting  well-established 
fact  that  the  laity  were  the  foes  of  the  clergy ;  whence  it 
naturally  followed  that  they  must  be  treated  as  such.  The 

4  Paracl  xvii.  60. 


iv  DANTE   AS  A   PROPHET  111 

laity  were  forbidden  under  pain  of  excommunication,  even 
in  private  and  amongst  themselves,  to  speak  upon  matters 
of  faith.  In  every  town  the  inquisitor  zealously  exercised 
his  office,  and  Dante  was  well  aware  that  a  mere  suspicion 
sufficed  to  bring  a  man  before  the  judge,  and  to  condemn 
him  to  a  painful  death.  Against  this  danger  no  princely 
asylum  could  ensure  him  permanent  shelter ;  for  he  must 
be  prepared  for  the  possibility  that  his  patron,  under  a 
threat  of  excommunication,  would  give  him  up,  or  that  the 
authorities  of  a  state,  under  similar  pressure,  would  exe- 
cute the  sentence  upon  him.  One  need  but  to  call  to  mind 
the  fate  of  Dante's  contemporary  Cecco  d'Ascoli — likewise 
a  poet  and  scholar — who  was  condemned  by  the  Inquisi- 
tion to  suffer  death  at  the  stake  on  account  of  his  astrolo- 
gical theories.  The  dread  of  sharing  such  a  fate  is  amply 
sufficient  to  explain  Dante's  silence  upon  certain  matters, 
which  must  nevertheless  have  revolted  his  feelings  of 
justice  and  humanity. 

I  turn  now  to  the  prophetic  vision  of  the  chariot. 

In  the  earthly  Paradise,  the  cradle  of  the  human  race — 
reached  by  Dante  after  his  pilgrimage  through  Purgatory 
and  before  entering  the  regions  of  the  blessed,  and  where 
the  prophetess  Matilda  receives  and  leads  him  from  one 
vision  to  another — the  triumphal  procession  of  the  church 
is  made  to  pass  before  him.  It  appeared  in  the  form 
of  a  chariot  drawn  by  a  griffin  (Christ),  and  accompa- 
nied by  Prophets,  Apostles,  and  Evangelists.  In  allegorical 
pictures  their  destiny  is  unfolded  before  him :  persecution, 
expiation,  victory,  apostasy.  Four  catastrophes  or  trans- 
formations occur.  Out  of  the  earth  a  dragon  arises  who 
strikes  his  tail  through  the  chariot  and  tears  part  of  it 
away.  Meanwhile  the  rest  of  the  chariot  is  clothed  with 
the  feathers  of  the  imperial  eagle,  and  out  of  it  grow  seven 
horned  heads.  Hitherto  Beatrice  has  sat  in  the  chariot, 
but  now  in  her  place  appears  '  a  shameless  whore,  whose 
ken  roves  loosely  round  her,'5  and  who  bestows  kisses 

5  Purg.  xxxii.  147. 


112  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  iv 

upon  her  lover,  the  giant  who  stands  near  her ;  but  when 
she  raises  her  eyes  towards  Dante,  the  giant  scourges  her, 
and,  loosing  the  chariot  from  the  tree  to  which  the  griffin 
has  bound  it,  drags  it  off  into  the  wood. 

The  chariot  of  the  church  has  thus  been  doubly  ruined, 
through  the  plumes  torn  from  the  imperial  eagle  and 
in  the  injury  done  to  it  by  the  dragon;  the  first  is  the 
cause  of  the  second.  The  fatal  Donation  of  Constantine 
awoke  in  the  popes  the  desire,  and  furnished  them  with  a 
pretext,  for  coveting  the  lands  and  subjects,  the  rights  and 
revenues  of  the  empire,  and  for  appropriating  them  with  the 
assistance  of  the  spiritual  weapons  which  lay  in  their  power. 
Hence  arose  the  long  series  of  disputes  between  the  empe- 
rors and  the  popes,  which  led  both  to  the  decay  of  the 
empire  and  the  corruption  of  the  church.  In  Italy  and 
Germany  the  popes  had  so  reduced  the  power  of  the  empire, 
and  had  laid  hands  on  so  much  of  its  territory,  that  it 
could  scarcely  any  longer  maintain  itself ;  whilst  under  the 
stimulating  example  and  with  the  connivance  of  the  head 
of  the  church,  the  whole  clerical  body  had  become  steeped 
in  the  vice  of  insatiable  avarice.  This  passion,  combined 
with  the  costliness  of  the  wars  waged  by  the  popes  during 
the  past  ninety  years  for  no  better  purpose  than  securing 
their  own  territorial  supremacy,  had  brought  the  Eoman 
Curia  into  the  habit  of  subordinating  the  whole  conduct  of 
affairs  to  considerations  of  gain,  and  of  making  everything 
a  matter  of  traffic  so  that  the  whole  church  was  infected 
with  the  disease.  That  is  the  dragon  who  has  made  a 
breach  in  the  chariot :  simony  nurtured  in  Eome. 

As  this  interpretation  of  the  signification  of  the  dragon 
differs  from  those  which  have  been  hitherto  given,  I  must 
proceed  to  justify  it.6  No  sooner  has  the  dragon  struck 

6  The  variety  of  interpretations  quoted  in  Scartazzini's  Commentary  II. 
756,  shows  how  widely  opinions  have  differed  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
dragon  or  serpent.  The  wildest  significations  have  been  put  forward.  Most 
modern  critics,  taking  the  cue  from  some  of  their  predecessors,  have  decided 
in  favour  of  Mohammed:  thus  Kannegiesser,  Streckfuss,  Blanc,  Hoffinger, 
Bar,  Goschel,  Euth,  Philalethes,  Longfellow,  and  a  number  of  Italian  writers. 


iv  DANTE   AS  A  PROPHET  113 

through  the  chariot  with  his  sting,  than  the  latter  is  turned 
into  a  hideous  seven-headed  monster,  upon  whom  sits  the 
whore.  Now  even  before  this,  when  Dante  meets  Pope 
Nicolas  in  hell  suffering  punishment  for  simony,  he  upbraids 
him  with  the  observation  that  in  him,  and  in  popes  such  as 
he,  is  fulfilled  the  apocalyptic  prophecy  of  the  Babylonian 
woman  who  sits  upon  the  beast  with  the  seven  heads  and  the 
ten  horns,  holding  in  her  hand  the  cup  of  abominations. 
Therefore  both  here  and  there  is  the  same  picture.  The 
mystic  chariot,  the  vessel,  or  sacred  edifice,  as  Dante  in  one 
place  describes  it,  turns  into  the  apocalyptic  beast  with  the 
whore.  The  vision  of  the  chariot  must  besides  be  intended  in 
Dante's  opinion  to  be  the  allegorical  representation  of  most 
weighty  and  decisive  circumstances  in  connection  with  the 
church.  Now  there  is  nothing  in  regard  to  the  church 
which  Dante  so  repeatedly  and  so  pointedly  alludes  to  as 
the  predominance  of  simony ;  so  that  it  is  inconceivable 
that  he  should  overlook  it  in  the  vision.  Dante  well  knew 
the  danger  of  applying  the  apocalyptic  prophecies  to  the 
papacy  and  to  the  simony  of  its  acts ;  he  knew  that  this 
interpretation  had  been  regarded  in  the  Waldenses  as  heresy 
and  capital  crime.  Still  he  had  high  authority  to  fall  back 
upon.  Cardinal  Bonaventura,  the  greatest  theologian  of  the 
Minorite  Order,  and  highly  revered  throughout  Western  Chris- 
tendom, had  forty  years  previously  pointed  out  the  apoca- 
lyptic image  of  the  whore  and  the  beast  as  symbolical  of  the 
Koman  chair,  and  had  repeatedly  and  in  the  most  pointed 
terms  accused  the  latter  of  simony.7  Dante  was  thus  led 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  holy  vessel  the  church,  with  her 
hierarchical  orders  and  constitution,  had  ceased  to  be,  having 
been  destroyed  by  the  serpent  Simony.  She  must  shortly 
therefore  be  reconstructed.  He  certainly  did  not  mean 

The  most  learned  of  English  Dantists,  E.  H.  Plumptre,  now  (1866)  supposes 
that  the  dragon  has  reference  to  the  controversy  upon  images,  or  to  Satan 
working  through  schismatics  in  general. 

7  Commentarius  in  Apocalypsin,  in  vol.  2  of  the  Operum  Supplementum 
(Tridenti),  1773,  fol.  p.  815  and  elsewhere.  The  earlier  editions  have  been 
tampered  with. 

I 


114  DANTE   AS  A   PROPHET  iv 

that  there  was  no  longer  a  church  upon  earth,  no  common 
fold  for  Christian  believers.     Just  as  Bishop  Otto  of  Frei- 
sing  had  admitted  that  at  the  darkest  hour  of  the  church's 
corruption,  7,000  elect  souls,  known  only  to  God,  would 
yet   remain,  so   was   Dante   doubtless   convinced  that   in 
this,  the   church's  eclipse,   a   numerous  band   of  earnest 
believers  had  kept  themselves  in  piety  and  moral  purity. 
Long  ago  councils  and  popes  had  not  only  declared  simony 
to  be  the  most  noxious  of  all  heresies,  but  decided  all  con- 
secrations and  priestly  offices  performed  by  a  simonist  to 
be  null  and  void.     The  people  had  been  informed  that  their 
mere  presence  at  the  masses  and  prayers  offered  up  by  a 
simonist  counted  as  deadly  sin,  and  nevertheless  since  then 
simony  had  spread  far  and  wide  like  a  deluge  over  the 
church.     Dante  felt  himself  impelled  to  proclaim  that,  as 
there  was  no  longer  before  God  any  true  pope,  so  neither 
was  there  any  true  church,  any  life  and  health  giving  insti- 
tution ;  the  chair  was  vacant,  the  vessel  broken.     As  he 
elsewhere  says,8  the  vine  which  St.  Peter  planted  has  become 
a  briar.     And  forthwith  he  makes  Beatrice,  the  symbol  of 
pure  and  primitive  evangelical  teaching,  announce  that  she 
must  for  a  time  disappear.     She  is  driven  away  by  the 
shameless  woman,  by  a  false  flattering  theology  of  which 
the  source  is  to  be  found  in  the  false  Decretals.     The  prin- 
ciples comprised  in  these  statutes  touching  state  and  church, 
papacy  and  empire,   were  in  Dante's  eyes  erroneous  and 
mischievous,    as   he    shows  in   his  work    upon  the    mon- 
archy.    But  to  have  charged  the  papal   bulls  themselves 
directly  with  containing  false  doctrine  would  have  been  too 
dangerous.     Dante  declares  them  to  be  worthy  of  reverence, 
but  that  it  was  lamentable,  as  well  as  mischievous  for  the 
world,  that  the  Gospels  and  the  Fathers  should  be  set  aside 
in  favour  of  their  exclusive   study  as  the  surest  road  to 
preferment  and  riches.9 

8  Parad.  xxiv.  100.  9  Parad.  ix.  133. 


iv  DANTE   AS   A   PKOPHET  115 

A  future  emperor,  the  '  Dux,' l  is  to  slay  the  giant  and  the 
woman.  In  what  way  can  Dante  have  imagined  that  this 
would  come  to  pass  ?  Not  through  bloodshed  and  war  ;  it 
would,  he  says,  come  to  pass  without  injury  to  the  fruits  of 
the  field,  and  we  know  that  he  detested  any  act  of  violence 
against  an  acknowledged,  even  though  illegitimate,  pope. 
But  whenever  the  favourable  juncture  of  the  planets  is 
accomplished,  and  the  veltro  with  their  aid  has  freed  the 
Italians  from  the  she- wolf  (Avarice  and  Mammon- worship), 
Guelphs  and  Ghibellines  will  be  reconciled  and  united,  the 
mastery  of  the  Neri  in  Florence  will  come  to  an  end,  and 
all  will  voluntarily  submit  to  the  emperor.  This  then  is  the 
death  of  the  Gallic  giant,  for  the  ground  will  thus  be  cut 
from  under  his  feet.  This  once  accomplished,  the  emperor 
will  seal  the  fate  of  the  whore  after  the  same  peaceable 
fashion.  Her  abode  is  in  Avignon,  situated  in  the  territory 
which  still  formed  part  of  the  Kingdom  of  Aries.  Dante 
is  aware  that  the  emperors,  the  Ottos  and  the  Henrys, 
formerly  by  peaceable  means  with  the  aid  of  councils  suc- 
ceeded in  healing  the  corruption  of  the  Eoman  Curia.  An 
emperor  might  with  the  best  right  undertake  to  do  the  same 
again.  For  just  at  that  time — between  1314  and  1316 — 
owing  to  dissensions  between  the  French  and  Italian  cardi- 
nals, the  papal  chair  had  remained  vacant  for  more  than 
two  years ;  at  the  Conclave  in  Carpentras  a  band  of  Gascon 
soldiers  in  the  pay  of  the  French  had  made  a  murderous 
onslaught  upon  the  Italian  cardinals,  and  forced  them  to 
seek  safety  in  flight.  The  pitiable  condition  of  the  papal 

1  That  the  numbers  indicating  letters  signify  the  word  '  Dux '  is  certain. 
Dante  borrowed  this  cipher  for  the  expected  deliverer  and  avenger  from  the 
Joachimists.  William  of  Saint-Amour  (in  Martene,  Ampl.  Coll.  ix.  1334), 
who  incorrectly  assigns  the  authorship  to  Oreme,  quotes  the  following  from 
the  Concordia  of  Joachim  :  Diligenter  purgato  tritico  ab  universis  zizaniis 
assurget  quasi  dux  novus  de  Babylone.  Joachim  signifies  thereby  a  pope, 
but  Dante's  views  would  make  it  refer  to  an  emperor.  It  is  also  apparent 
that  Dante  distinguishes  the  veltro  horn  the  'Dux,'  making  the  former  forerun 
the  latter.  The  cleansing  of  the  wheat  from  the  tares  is  the  office  of  the 
veltro.  Only  after  that  will  the  emperor  appear. 

i  2 


116  DANTE   AS   A   PROPHET  TV 

court,  its  want  of  freedom  and  security,  was  thus  conspi- 
cuous to  all  the  world.  Dante,  therefore,  expected  that 
the  first  act  of  the  new  emperor  would  be  the  release  of  the 
Italian  cardinals  from  their  captivity  upon  French  soil, 
which  would  bring  about  the  return  of  the  Curia  to  Rome. 
By  this  means,  he  says,  the  Vatican  and  the  other  places 
sanctified  by  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  *  shall  be  delivered 
from  the  adulterous  bond ; ' 2  whilst  the  great  moral  reform 
which  will  meanwhile  have  taken  place  in  Rome  will  turn 
to  the  advantage  of  the  papacy,  and  Beatrice  will  be  rein- 
stated in  the  place  of  the  whore.  Then  also  will  follow 
Dante's  own  longed-for  return  to  his  native  town — that 
town  so  severely  inveighed  against,  and  yet  so  ardently 
loved.3 

History  took  a  different  course  from  that  which  Dante 
anticipated.  The  papal  chair  was  absent  from  Rome  for 
seventy  years  upon  Gallic  soil,  its  occupants  well  content 
with  the  wages  to  be  earned  by  doing  service  to  the  giant. 
Both  before  and  afterwards  Gascons  and  Cahorsines  drank 
of  Italian  blood,  afterwards  even  more  than  before.  The 
dragon  with  the  sting  became  yet  mightier  in  Avignon  than 
he  had  been  before  in  Rome.  The  supremacy  acquired 
through  the  Decretals  enabled  the  papacy  to  shine  with 
undiminished  splendour  for  centuries  longer,  exacting  sacri- 
fices innumerable.  From  time  to  time,  but  with  con- 
tinually decreasing  power,  German  Emperors  appeared  in 
Italy  soliciting  coronation  in  Rome  ;  but  the  imperial  pro- 
gress sank  by  degrees  to  the  level  of  an  idle  pageant  raising 
the  scorn  rather  than  the  reverence  of  the  people. 

2  Parad.  ix.  137. 

8  We  may  here  in  passing  draw  attention  to  a  prediction  of  Dante's 
which  might  be  said  to  have  been  fulfilled.  He  affirms  that  God  would  not 
allow  the  Guelphs  to  attain  their  object  of  substituting  the  lilies  for  the 
eagle,  i.e.  French  rule  would  never  be  established  in  the  place  of  the  empire. 
The  question  as  to  whether  the  prediction  has  been  verified  might  be 
answered  either  way :  in  the  affirmative  if  one  thinks  of  the  results  of  the 
battle  of  Pavia  in  1525 ;  in  the  negative  if  the  Italian  Kingdom  set  up  by 
Napoleon  300  years  later  be  taken  into  consideration. 


iv  DANTE  AS  A  PROPHET  117 

The  life  of  the  poet  passed  away  betwixt  hojreand  disap- 
pointment, amid  the  cares  and  sorrows  of  ceaseless 
wandering,  wrestling  with  want  and  poverty,  and  embit- 
tered by  many  vexations.  Well  might  he  say  of  himself 
that  he  was  steeled  against  Fortune's  blows. 4  He  died  in 
exile  at  Kavenna,  at  the  age  of  fifty-six. 

The  reconciliation  and  fusion  of  the  Guelph  and 
Ghibelline  parties,  his  greatest  longing  and  dearest  hope  in 
life,  was  so  far  from  being  realised,  that  during  the  three 
centuries  through  which  the  struggle  was  prolonged  7,200 
revolutions  and  over  700  massacres  in  the  towns  have  been 
enumerated.5  Full-blown  despotism,  side  by  side  with 
anarchical  republicanism;  civil  war  breaking  out  at  intervals 
of  five  or  six  years,  and  ceaseless  quarrels  between  neigh- 
bouring towns,  are  the  characteristics  which  mark  these 
centuries.  The  Italian  was  born  to  a  heritage  of  hate  and 
a  thirst  for  vengeance.  He  grew  up  to  feel  that  the  vocation 
of  his  life  was  to  fight  and  hate  with  his  party.  Machiavelli's 
book  '  The  Prince '  was  the  product  of  such  conditions,  and 
the  theory  which  shaped  the  practice  of  nearly  30Q 
years. 

Yet  Dante  is  still  now  as  ever  not  only  the  martyr,  but 
the  prophet,  teacher,  and  guide  of  his  countrymen.  Well 
may  the  statesmen  of  that  country,  when  the  serious  ques- 
tions of  life  crop  up,  take  counsel  from  his  works,  even  as 
the  ancient  Eomans  consulted  their  Sibylline  books.  They 
seem  to  feel  this,  for  a  separate  chair  has  recently  been 
endowed  for  the  first  time  in  Kome  for  the  study  of  Dante, 
to  which  the  most  famous  of  living  poets,  Carducci,  has 
been  nominated.6  Naturally  the  question  presents  itself  : 
If  Dante  could  now  return  among  the  living,  how  would  he 

4  Farad,  xvii.  25. 

5  Ferrari,  Histoire  des    Revolutions   d'ltalie,  ou   Guelfes  et   Oibelins 
(Paris,  1858,  4  vols.),  gives  this  reckoning. 

6  Carducci  has  since  refused  the  offer,  and  up  to  the  present  time  (Jan 
1883)  the  post  has  not  been  filled  up. 


118  DANTE   AS   A  PROPHET  iv 

regard  the  present  relations  between  Germany  and  Italy  ? 
Any  one  who  has  read  the  soul  of  the  poet  may  answer  for 
him :  May  both  countries,  to  the  benefit  of  the  world  and 
themselves,  long  remain  united  in  friendly  alliance,  but 
dynastically  and  politically  separate,  independent  one  from 
the  other  ! 


119 


THE  STRUGGLE  OF  GERMANY  WITH  THE 
PAPACY  UNDER  THE  EMPEROR  LUDWIG 
THE  BAVARIAN1 

WE  are  still  under  the  impression  of  the  mighty  events 
which  have  changed  the  condition  and  form  of  Germany  ; 
we  stand  expectant  before  the  gates  of  the  future,  and  the 
profound  differences  of  opinion  which  divide  the  public 
mind  are  represented  by  two  great  parties  each  of  which 
confidently  awaits  for  Germany  the  realisation  of  its  own 
wishes.  The  one  looks  forward  to  a  period  of  material  and 
intellectual  bloom,  ascendency  of  power,  and  leadership  in 
Europe  ;  believing  that  Germany  will  again  become,  as  she 
was  from  the  tenth  to  the  thirteenth  century,  the  sustainer 
and  director  of  the  forms  which  mould  the  world  :  the 
other,  on  the  contrary,  predicts  the  speedy  downfall  of  the 
empire  and  the  rushing  in  of  chaos.  Yet  as  regards  the 
future  of  Germany  he  alone  can  conjecture  an  approxima- 
tion to  the  truth,  who,  after  serious  study  of  the  history  of 
the  German  people  and  their  neighbours,  like  a  prophet 
glancing  backward,  draws  his  conclusions  from  the  past  as 
to  what  the  future  has  in  store. 

It  will  be  well  for  us  therefore  to  spend  some  time  to- 
day in  considering  how  Bavaria  and  Germany  have  arrived 
at  what  they  now  are,  and  we  are  at  once  easily  led  back  to 
the  epoch  when  Bavaria  was  called  upon  for  the  first  time 
to  play  an  active  part  in  the  history  of  Europe.  This 
happened  under  that  Ludwig  who,  if  we  except  the  transi- 

1  Address  delivered  at  the  Festival  of  the  Academy  of  Munich,  July  28, 
1875,  hitherto  printed  only  in  the  Allgcmeinc  Zeitung. 


120   THE   STRUGGLE   OF   GERMANY  WITH  THE   PAPACY          v 

tory  and  shadowy  appearance  of  the  Emperor  Charles  VII., 
was  the  only  Bavarian  prince  who  wore  the  royal  and 
imperial  crowns.  Sixty  or  seventy  years  ago  our  Academy 
was  greatly  occupied  with  the  Emperor  Ludwig  ;  a  prize 
was  offered  for  a  good  history  of  the  emperor  and  his  reign, 
and  was  awarded  to  Hammer t,  whilst  the  rival  work  of 
Zirngibl  was  printed  at  the  cost  of  the  Academy.  Both 
works  have  become  antiquated  and  inadequate,  and  have 
been  surpassed  by  Buchner  in  his  *  History  of  Bavaria.'  Still 
one  may  say  that  the  period  from  1314  to  1847  yet  remains 
one  of  the  most  obscure  in  German  history.  Since  the  above- 
mentioned  works  were  published  in  1812,  fresh  material 
has  come  to  light,  and  we  now  possess  excellent  preparatory 
works  and  studies  of  particular  parts,  but  as  yet  no  com- 
prehensive work  upon  Ludwig  the  Bavarian,  such  as  would 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  present  day,  and  such  as  we 
possess  upon  the  earlier  emperors — Henry  II.,  III.,  IV., 
and  Frederick  I.  and  II. — and  I  would  fain  from  this  place 
incite  one  amongst  our  younger  men  of  literary  ability  here 
in  Munich,  or  in  Gottingen,  to  undertake  so  worthy  and 
useful  a  task — a  task  which  would  certainly  demand  some 
years  of  serious  and  persevering  study.2 

The  empire  of  Ludwig  and  the  empire  of  William — 
the  Holy  Koman  Empire  of  the  German  people  under  the 
Bavarian  prince,  and  the  empire  of  1871 — how  essentially 
do  they  differ,  and  what  a  world  of  changes  and  new 
formations  lies  between  them  !  The  former  an  empire 
collapsing  into  irremediable  decay,  the  famous  order  of 
things  which  had  endured  for  centuries  passing  away ;  the 
latter  the  pledge  of  resurrection  and  new  birth,  a  Hercules 
vigorous  enough  even  in  the  cradle  to  strangle  the  serpents 
that  threaten  his  life.  Yet,  wide  and  deep  as  the  gulf  may 
be  which  separates  the  old  empire  from  the  new,  we  cannot 
move  a  step  amongst  the  debris  of  the  past  without  en- 

2  Since  this  was  written  the  excellent  literary  contributions  of  Riezler, 
Preger,  Karl  Miiller,  and  others  have  appeared,  and  have  considerably  widened 
our  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  this  interval  of  time. 


v  UNDER  THE   EMPEROR  LUDWIG  THE   BAVARIAN      121 

countering  figures  and  parallels  which  bring  it  into  relation- 
ship with  the  present  day. 

The  entire  reign  of  the  Emperor  Ludwig,  which  lasted 
thirty-three  years,  puts  one  in  mind  of  the  painful  task  of 
Sisyphus,  the  heaving  and  turning  of  the  stone,  which, 
laboriously  brought  to  the  summit,  rebounds  away  down 
to  the  valley,  so  that  the  weary  toil  must  be  begun  again. 
It  was  not  destitute  of  brilliant  victories  or  splendid  suc- 
cesses, but  every  gain  was  followed  by  loss,  every  victory 
in  the  field  by  defeat  in  the  cabinet.  The  whole  life  of 
this  gentle  and  philanthropic,  but  weak  and  fickle  prince, 
was  absorbed  in  the  struggle  with  the  two  hereditary  foes 
of  imperial  and  German  greatness — the  German  princes 
and  the  papacy — backed  by  the  lurking  malevolence  of 
France,  which  was  always  on  the  watch  to  seize  upon 
German  territory  or  to  appropriate  the  imperial  title.  We 
see  Ludwig  coming  boldly  forward  to  grapple  with  the 
difficulties  that  oppose  him,  but  of  his  two  mighty  foes  one 
has  an  ally  in  the  bosom  of  the  emperor  himself.  He 
trembles  in  his  inmost  soul  before  the  spiritual  weapons  of 
his  adversary,  and  he  would  fain  purchase  peace  with  him 
at  any  cost. 

Like  all  his  predecessors,  Ludwig  succumbed  in  the  end ; 
like  them,  too,  not  without  fault  of  his  own,  and  not  without 
having  fallen  into  many  errors  in  the  greedy  attempt  to 
increase  his  own  family  power. 

It  was  through  the  elections  both  of  bishops  and  em- 
perors that  the  Eoman  Curia  undermined  the  German 
Empire  and  brought  on  its  ruin.  The  emperors  of  the 
Saxon  and  the  Salic  house  had  made  the  bishops,  especially 
the  Ehenish  archbishops,  rich  and  powerful,  thinking  that 
in  them  they  should  find  the  most  trustworthy  support  of 
their  own  power  and  their  most  faithful  assistants  and  in- 
struments in  government.  These  prelates,  nominated  by  the 
emperors,  became  their  chancellors  or  ministers,  and  helped 
towards  the  unity  of  the  mighty  empire.  The  struggle  about 
investitures,  and  its  conclusion  in  the  Concordat  of  Worms, 


122   THE   STRUGGLE    OF   GERMANY   WITH    THE    PAPACY         v 

first  loosened  the  tie  which  had  bound  the  emperors  to  the 
spiritual  princes,  and  step  by  step  the  popes  found  a  way 
to  wrest  from  the  emperors  the  influence  over  the  elections 
which  at  first  had  remained  with  the  latter.  Rome  so 
contrived  these  elections  that  they  became  a  source  of 
revenue  for  the  papacy,  at  the  same  time  that  they  cor- 
rupted the  church  and  nullified  the  policy  of  the  empire. 
The  primitive  form  of  elections  ratified  by  the  combined 
acclamations  of  clergy  and  people  was  abolished,  the  original 
right  of  the  metropolitans  to  interfere  in  the  elections  of 
their  diocese,  having  become  odious  to  the  popes,  was 
cancelled,  and  the  privilege  of  voting  confined  exclusively 
to  the  cathedral  chapter,  a  close  and  independent  body 
that  had  become  entirely  estranged  from  its  original  organ- 
isation and  purpose,  having  degenerated  into  an  institution 
for  providing  for  the  younger  sons  of  the  nobles,  and  having 
been  moreover  recently  withdrawn  by  the  popes  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  bishops.  The  chapter  had  consequently 
become  a  corporation  in  rivalry  with  the  bishops,  and 
intent  solely  upon  its  own  interests,  besides  wittingly  or 
unwittingly  being  made  to  serve  constantly  the  interests  of 
the  papal  court.  In  the  hands  of  the  chapter  the  election 
of  a  bishop  was  almost  always  either  open  to  dispute,  or 
simoniacal,  or  in  some  way  at  variance  with  appointed 
forms ;  giving  occasion  to  suits  which  had  to  be  carried  to 
Eome  for  decision.  It  was  about  this  time  that,  with  the 
aid  of  the  new  text-book  for  dogma  and  statute — viz.,  the 
Decretal  of  Gratian — the  new  canon  law  of  the  church 
came  into  force,  which,  founded  entirely  upon  the  fictions 
and  forgeries  of  the  preceding  centuries,  made  the  bishops 
altogether  dependent  upon  Eome,  and  obliged  every  dis- 
puted question  of  election  to  be  referred  to  Eome  for 
decision.  An  elected  candidate  thus  frequently  found  him- 
self under  the  ruinous  necessity  of  carrying  on  for  years  a 
costly  suit  in  Eome  either  personally  or  through  his  agents. 
When  unable  to  raise  the  sum  of  money  required  in  fees 
for  the  pallium,  suspension  and  excommunication  were 


v  UNDER  THE   EMPEROR  LUDWIG   THE   BAVARIAN      123 

employed  to  extort  from  him  the  payment  of  the  debts. 
The  popes  had  more  than  one  screw  in  their  hands  which 
they  needed  only  to  turn  to  render  the  electoral  prince 
bishops,  bound  by  the  pallium  oath,  compliant  instruments 
of  their  commands  and  designs.  After  the  thirteenth 
century  the  popes  not  infrequently  interfered  directly  in 
the  nomination  of  the  spiritual  prince-electors. 

In  this  way  it  also  came  to  pass  that  the  election  to  the 
German  crown  was  henceforth  entirely  governed  by  four 
considerations. 

First,  a  son  might  not  succeed  his  father,  so  that, 
whereas  it  had  formerly  been  the  rule  that  the  son  or  the 
next-of-kin  should  inherit  the  throne,  exclusion  now  became 
the  rule.  Two  turning  points  are  here  to  be  noticed :  (1)  when 
at  Forchheim,  on  March  13,  1077,  the  German  princes,  in- 
spired by  the  suggestions  of  the  papal  legate,  passed  a 
resolution  to  the  effect  that  the  throne  was  no  longer  here- 
ditary, and  that  in  any  case  when  the  son  of  an  emperor 
seemed  unworthy  or  unpopular  some  one  else  should  be 
elected  in  his  stead ;  (2)  when  in  the  thirteenth  century  the 
electoral  vote  was  restricted  to  the  seven  prince-electors,  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  the  others.  To  support  this  the  Curia 
caused  the  fable  to  be  circulated  through  one  of  its  officials, 
Tolommeo  of  Lucca,  attributing  the  appointment  of  the 
prince-electors  to  Gregory  V.,  who  obtained  a  written  docu- 
ment from  Otto  of  Brandenburg  stating  his  conviction 
that  the  right  of  the  prince- electors  was  derived  from  the 
pope.  As  a  natural  consequence  this  right  could  be  exer- 
cised only  under  papal  control. 

Secondly,  a  weak  prince  from  an  uninfluential  family 
was  to  be  selected  in  preference  to  some  member  of  a 
powerful  house. 

Thirdly,  any  candidate  must  be  excluded,  or  if  need  be 
deposed,  who  was  displeasing  either  to  the  pope  or  to  the 
court  of  France,  by  which  at  that  period  the  Curia  was 
guided. 

Fourthly,  every  election  was  made  a  matter  of  traffic* 


124   THE   STRUGGLE   OF  GERMANY  WITH  THE   PAPACY          v 

No  candidate  was  elected  who  had  not  given  or  promised 
to  the  spiritual  princes  either  large  sums  or  else  the  right 
of  levying  important  taxes,  and  to  the  secular  princes  lands 
and  vassals. 

Thus  every  emperor  commenced  his  reign  shackled  by 
the  endless  gifts  and  favours  he  had  promised,  and  crippled 
by  the  alienation  of  a  part  of  his  imperial  rights.  The 
fruits  of  the  Koman  policy  in  the  German  elections  are 
patent  in  the  quarter- century  between  1250  and  1275,  when 
Germany  received  either  foreign  or  feeble  kings,  under 
whose  nominal  sway  violence  and  family  feuds,  general 
confusion  and  wild  lawlessness  prevailed. 

The  popes  had  artfully  contrived  during  fifteen  years  to 
dispose  of  every  fresh  election,  and  it  was  not  until  that  of 
Eudolf  of  Habsburg  that  a  more  orderly  state  of  things  was 
introduced.  Yet  Kudolf  even  was  not  destined  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son.  Adolphus  of  Nassau  was  raised  to  the 
throne  through  the  now  customary  means  of  bribery. 
Albert,  although  a  victor  in  the  open  field,  had  none  the 
less  to  purchase  his  election  by  concessions  and  widely 
distributed  favours.  The  election  (1308)  of  Henry  VII.  of 
Luxemburg,  the  possessor  of  an  insignificant  countship, 
was  entirely  the  doing  of  the  spiritual  princes  in  reward 
for  his  readiness  to  satisfy  their  covetous  desires ;  and  they 
accordingly  obtained  the  lion's  share  in  the  first  distribu- 
tion of  favours. 

Things  stood  thus  with  the  empire  when,  after  the  death 
of  Henry,  Ludwig  had  the  boldness  to  step  into  the  fateful 
legacy.  He  had  for  opponents  the  two  powerful  houses  of 
Luxemburg  and  Habsburg,  both  of  whom,  through  the  deadly 
use  which  the  electors  made  of  their  privileges,  had  been 
despoiled  of  the  crown  which  their  fathers  had  worn,  and 
each  of  whom  was  occupied  with  alternately  grasping  at  the 
throne  and  undermining  the  power  of  the  empire  by  en- 
larging their  own  borders  at  its  expense.  A  struggle  of 
several  years  sufficed  to  overcome  the  resistance  of  Frederick 
of  Habsburg,  but  Pope  John  in  Avignon  was  neither  to  be 


v  UNDER  THE   EMPEROR  LUDWIG  THE   BAVARIAN      125 

overcome  nor  conciliated.  He  claimed  both  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  empire  during  the  vacanc}7  of  the  throne,  and 
the  right  of  decision  in  every  disputed  election,  and  treated 
the  new  king  with  haughty  contempt.  In  this  he  was 
supported  by  Lud wig's  most  dangerous  enemy,  the  French 
King  ;  for  since  the  election  of  the  French  Pope  Urban  IV. 
in  1261,  followed  by  that  of  Clement  IV.  and  Martin  IV., 
the  papacy  had  become  French,  besides  which  the  trans- 
ference of  the  Southern  Italian  Kingdom  to  a  branch  of  the 
Capet  family  had  so  firmly  established  the  preponderance 
of  French  interests  and  despotism  in  the  Curia  that  even 
the  Italians,  whose  reigns  alternated  with  and  followed  upon 
those  of  the  French  popes,  voluntarily  or  involuntarily 
submitted  to  this  bondage. 

The  victory  of  Philip  the  Fair  over  Boniface  VIII.  was 
quickly  followed  by  the  removal  of  the  papal  court  to  the 
south  of  France.  We  find  the  proportion  of  French 
cardinals  at  once  rising  to  seventeen  in  twenty,  amongst 
whom  seven  had  been  ministers  or  chancellors  at  the  court 
of  France. 

What  was  it  at  that  time  that  France  desired  from  Ger- 
many ?  First  and  foremost  nothing  less  than  the  German 
imperial  crown  !  Deliberations  upon  this  matter  had  already 
been  held  in  1273  ;  the  ambassadors  of  Philip  the  Bold 
had,  it  was  said,  solicited  and  obtained  from  Gregory  X.  in 
Florence  the  assurance  that  the  pope  would,  above  all 
things,  prefer  to  see  the  French  King  seated  upon  the 
imperial  throne.  The  fact  seems  to  tally  with  this,  that 
Eudolf,  despite  immense  exertions  and  lavish  expenditure 
of  the  imperial  possessions  in  Italy  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Curia,  could  never  succeed  in  obtaining  the  imperial  crown 
from  the  hands  of  the  pope.  Philip  next  sought  to  procure, 
in  1308,  but  in  vain,  the  imperial  crown  for  his  brother, 
Charles  of  Anjou.  Had  this  endeavour  been  successful,  the 
permanent  vicegerency  of  the  empire  in  Italy  would  have 
fallen  on  Eobert  of  Naples,  and  that  universal  sway  which 
jurists  and  theologians  fancifully  connected  with  the  idea 


126  THE  STRUGGLE  OF  GERMANY  WITH  THE  PAPACY    T 

of  the  empire  would  have  been  partially  realised  in  the 
form  of  an  imperium  extending  over  France,  Germany,  and 
Italy.  In  1824  an  assembly  of  German  princes  was  really 
summoned  for  the  deposition  of  Ludwig,  but  the  project 
failed,  because  only  Leopold  of  Habsburg  presented  him- 
self. 

The  efforts  of  the  French  King  to  enlarge  his  own 
dominions  at  the  expense  of  the  empire  were  more  success- 
ful. Philip  the  Fair  had  already  annexed  Lyons,  the  em- 
peror had  suffered  the  loss  of  Provence,  and  only  a  few 
fragments  remained  to  him  of  the  Kingdom  of  Aries.  In 
Paris  it  was  given  out  that  at  a  meeting  with  Philip  in  1299 
King  Albert  with  the  German  barons  and  prelates  had 
given  their  consent  to  the  French  frontier  being  advanced 
from  the  Maas  to  the  Khine  in  Lothringen. 

Upon  his  own  part  the  pope  had  two  objects  in  view : 
(1)  the  humiliation  of  the  Ghibellines  combined  with  the 
annihilation  of  all  that  remained  of  imperial  government 
in  Italy,  which  he  counted  upon  dividing  between  himself 
and  Eobert  of  Naples  ;  (2)  the  transference  of  the  imperial 
dignity  to  the  French  nation.  The  latter  is  reported  by 
Eaynald,3  the  annalist  of  the  Boman  court,  who  alone  had 
access  to  the  records  of  the  papal  archives,  as  being  expressed 
in  a  document  addressed  by  the  pope  to  the  French  King. 

Eaynald' s  words  leave  it  uncertain  whether  this  was  to 
be  accomplished  in  the  ordinary  way  by  the  election  of  the 
French  King  to  the  German  throne,  or  whether  the  pope, 
in  pursuance  of  the  theory  of  translation  set  up  by  Innocent 
III.,  had  in  view  a  permanent  severance  of  the  imperial 
dignity  from  the  German  Kingdom  and  the  investiture  with 
it  of  the  French  nation. 

All  the  theologians  and  jurists  who  were  partial  to  Rome, 
both  at  that  time  and  down  to  the  sixteenth  century,  con- 
tended that  the  popes  had  first  wrested  the  empire  from  the 
Greeks  to  confer  it  upon  the  Franks,  then  upon  the  Italians, 
and  after  that  upon  the  Germans.  Thus  it  stood  also  now 

3  Eaynald,  a.  1324,  §  25. 


v  UNDER  THE   EMPEROR  LUDWIG  THE   BAVARIAN      127 

in  the  orthodox  chronicles  and  annals,  and  it  was  with  good 
reason  that  Pope  John  asserted  that  the  '  approved '  histori- 
cal records  needed  only  to  be  read  to  convince  people  of  the 
legitimacy  of  the  papal  claims.  Theoretically  it  was  taken 
for  granted  that  it  was  within  the  power  of  the  popes  to 
withdraw  from  the  Germans  what  had  been  conferred  upon 
them.  Now  every  Italian  pope  would  have  reckoned  that 
the  connection  of  the  empire  with  the  carefully  undermined 
and  rapidly  decaying  Kingdom  of  Germany  corresponded 
far  better  with  the  interests  and  aspirations  of  the  Curia 
than  would  an  empire  erected  upon  the  solid  foundations 
of  the  French  Monarchy,  which  would  inevitably  imperil 
the  papal  ascendency  in  Italy.  But  the  national  patriotism 
of  Jacob  of  Cahors  and  many  of  his  cardinals  appears  to 
have  troubled  the  political  vision  of  the  Curia  upon  this 
point.  If  no  open  attempt  was  made  to  transfer  the  empire 
to  France,  the  explanation  lies  with  the  cunning  legists  of 
the  French  court,  who  held  that  the  more  politic  and 
practical  way  was  to  obtain  the  German  Kingdom  for 
France  by  means  of  a  German  election  to  the  imperial 
power.  "Why  should  the  hope  not  be  entertained  in  Paris 
that  the  German  prince-electors,  who  shortly  before  had 
sold  their  votes  to  an  Englishman  and  to  a  Spaniard,  would 
next  be  willing  to  elect  a  King  of  France  who  was  ready  to 
pay  handsomely  ? 

It  is  a  known  fact  that  Ludwig,  excommunicated  and 
deposed  by  the  pope,  entered  into  relations  with  a  frag- 
ment of  the  great  Order  of  Franciscans,  those  very  Mystics 
whom  the  pope  had  condemned  as  heretical  on  account  of 
the  doctrine  of  poverty.  Threatened  with  imprisonment  or 
death,  they  found  most  of  them  (Italians)  a  refuge  with  him 
in  Munich,  and  became  his  spiritual  directors  and  court 
theologians,  and  induced  him  to  make  common  cause  with 
them.  The  controversy  was  indeed  of  deep  importance. 
Wherein,  it  was  asked,  does  the  highest  perfection  consist, 
to  which  in  religious  things  a  man  can  attain  in  the  sight 
of  God  ?  What  is  that  gospel,  that  ideal  of  the  devout  life, 


128   THE   STRUGGLE   OF  GERMANY  WITH  THE   PAPACY          v 

which  Christ  and  His  Apostles  proclaimed  and  recommen- 
ded both  by  preaching  and  personal  example  ?  The  great- 
est poverty,  said  the  Minorites,  the  voluntary  abandonment 
of  every  kind  of  possession,  not  only  by  the  individual  but 
by  the  whole  social  and  monastic  community;  and  upon  the 
observance  of  this  principle  they  rested  the  precedence  of 
their  order  before  all  other  associations  of  the  kind.  Neither 
storehouses  nor  barns,  neither  rents  nor  any  other  perma- 
nent revenues,  might  their  houses  own ;  the  only  proprietor 
of  the  things  they  used  should  be  the  pope.  Thus  they 
sought  to  establish  a  community  upon  earth  in  which  the 
purest  ideal  of  a  life  of  renunciation  entirely  consecrated  to 
God  might  be  realised.  The  order  had  been  solemnly 
recognised  and  confirmed  by  Popes  Nicolas  III.  and 
Clement  V. 

A  question  of  faith  was  undeniably  involved  here.  If 
this  form  of  poverty  was  indeed  the  highest  perfection, 
sanctified  by  the  counsel  and  example  of  Christ,  then  not 
only  the  Minorites,  but  every  Christian,  must  be  instructed 
in  it,  and  strive,  if  only  approximately,  to  carry  it  out. 
The  papal  bulls  upon  the  matter  must  be  entirely  unim- 
peachable, i.e.  if  one  proceeded  from  the  idea  of  an  infallible 
authority  upon  Christian  dogma.  It  was  precisely  these 
new  orders,  the  Minorites  and  Dominicans,  who  had  de- 
veloped and  endeavoured  to  transfer  to  the  minds  of  the 
people  the  idea  first  distinctly  enunciated  by  Innocent  III., 
that  God  has  appointed  a  vicegerent  upon  earth,  and  that 
this  vicegerent  is  the  pope. 

If  this  be  accepted  it  must  certainly  follow  that  the  pope, 
and  he  alone,  is  the  infallible  organ  of  divine  dogma.  The 
Minorites  presumed  themselves  therefore  to  be  perfectly 
secure  in  the  possession  of  their  rule,  and  in  their  high  pre- 
rogative before  the  rest  of  the  Christian  world  which  did 
not  aim  at  this  altissima  paupertas.  Thereupon  they  and 
their  favourite  doctrine  were  assailed  by  John  XXII. ,  and 
in  five  constitutions  of  cumulative  emphasis  he  proceeded 
to  demolish  the  teaching  of  his  predecessors  until  he  alto- 


v  UNDER  THE    EMPEROR   LUDWIG   OF   BAVARIA          129 

gethor  condemned  it  as  heresy.  The  public  contradiction 
of  the  bull  of  Nicolas  III.  he  excused  with  the  pretext  that 
the  pope  had  framed  the  bull  alone  in  his  chamber  without 
the  concurrence  of  his  cardinals. 

The  irresistible  logic  of  their  principles  at  once  drove 
the  Minorites  to  extremes ;  a  pope,  they  said,  who  con- 
tradicts his  infallible  predecessors  is  necessarily  a  false 
pope  and  a  usurper  of  the  highest  dignity.  John  re- 
taliated by  giving  them  over  to  the  Inquisition ;  his  suc- 
cessors did  the  same,  and  within  the  space  of  about  eighty 
years  114  martyrs  to  the  doctrine  of  papal  infallibility 
and  the  rule  of  poverty  perished  at  the  stake  in  Italy  and 
the  south  of  France,  whilst  a  still  larger  number  were 
tortured  to  death  in  the  fearful  dungeons  of  their  order 
or  in  those  of  the  Inquisition.  Even  in  1449  Nicolas  V., 
during  his  stay  at  Fabriano,  caused  several  of  these 
martyrs  to  be  condemned  to  death  and  burnt  by  the  in- 
quisitor Giacomo  della  Marca.  The  document  in  which 
Giacomo  recounts  the  disputations  which  he  held  with 
them  proves  that  the  subjects  in  dispute  continued  to  be 
the  two  questions  of  papal  infallibility  and  of  absolute 
poverty.  Giacomo  represented  to  them  that  a  pope  cer- 
tainly might  publish  false  doctrine  and  become  a  heretic  ; 
only  Providence  had  so  ordained  it  that  a  good  Catholic 
was  always  sure  to  follow  upon  an  heretical  pope.  Even 
in  the  Papal  Curia  this  was  the  official  dogma  of  the 
time.  But — such  are  the  fluctuations  of  human  nature 
and  human  opinions — 200  years  later,  whilst  the  Fran- 
ciscans were  urging  on  the  canonisation  of  this  very 
Giacomo,  the  Jesuits,  in  common  accord  with  the  Domini- 
cans and  the  Curia,  had  in  Southern  Europe  established 
the  supremacy  of  the  very  doctrine  for  which,  even  as  late  as 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Italian  priests  and  lay- 
men had  been  sent  to  the  stake.  Henceforth  any  one  who 
should  repeat  the  assertion  made  by  the  papal  inquisitor 
of  1449  would  be  liable  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  Inquisition. 
It  seemed  difficult  to  get  over  such  a  stumbling-block  when 

K 


130  THE  STRUGGLE  OF  GERMANY  WITH  THE  PAPACY    v 

in  Eome  in  1654  spotless  orthodoxy  had  become  a  primary 
condition  of  sanctity ;  for  Giacomo's  canonisation  would 
at  once  have  admitted  the  denial  of  papal  infallibility  to 
be  in  accordance  with  the  orthodox  faith.  The  canonisa- 
tion was  therefore  postponed.  But  the  order  would  not 
let  the  matter  rest,  and  seventy  years  later,  in  1726, 
Giacomo  found  a  place  in  the  calendar  of  saints,  former 
scruples  having  been  allayed  by  the  argument  that  there 
was  no  absolute  certainty  whether  the  offensive  book, 
which  at  that  time  still  remained  unprinted,  was  really 
written  by  his  own  hand.  So,  as  one  might  say,  by  the 
irony  of  history  it  came  to  pass  that  in  the  Emperor 
Ludwig's  time  the  roles  of  emperor  and  pope  were  reversed. 
The  emperor,  firmly  believing  the  doctrines  instilled  into 
him  by  the  Mystics  who  had  taken  refuge  with  him,  came 
forward  as  the  champion  of  papal  infallibility,  little  aware 
that  in  so  doing  he  was  sanctioning  the  emphatic  declara- 
tions of  Popes  Innocent  III.  and  IV.,  and  the  more  recent 
assertions  of  Boniface  VIII.,  to  the  effect  that  all  worldly 
powers  were  under  the  jurisdiction  and  at  the  disposal  of 
the  papacy,  and  that  he  was  thus  placing  himself  at  the 
mercy  of  his  opponents,  besides  giving  the  lie  to  his 
apologists,  Marsiglio  and  Occam.  The  pope  meanwhile 
had  issued  a  bull  in  which  he  solemnly  condemned  the 
teaching  of  his  predecessor  Nicolas  III.  as  heretical — no 
doubt  with  many  excuses  and  palliations  for  him  personally 
— but  dealing  all  the  more  pitilessly  with  the  partisans 
of  his  teaching,  whom  he  handed  over  to  the  courts  of 
"ohe  Inquisition  for  having  seriously  advocated  papal  infalli- 
bility. Ludwig,  by  taking  upon  himself  as  emperor  to 
declare  that  Jacob  of  Cahors,  being  a  false  teacher,  was 
incapable  of  reigning  as  pope,  constituted  himself,  though 
a  layman,  the  judge  over  faith  and  doctrine.  He  had  been 
prompted  to  take  this  step  by  his  Italian  counsellors,  who 
had  held  up  before  him  the  example  of  the  early  Chris- 
tian emperors.  He  conceived  himself  to  be  acting  merely 
as  Constantine,  Justinian,  and  even  Charles  the  Great  had 


v  UNDER   THE   EMPEROR  LUDWIG   OF  BAVARIA  181 

done ;  but  such  a  measure  had  come  to  be  strange  and 
intolerable  in  his  day ;  one  in  which  the  world  would  not 
follow  him.  Marsiglio,  moreover,  his  apologist,  had  boldly 
gone  back  to  primitive  Christian  times  in  his  work  upon  the 
development  of  the  church  system,  now  almost  a  thousand 
years  old,  and  had  denied  any  inherent  supremacy  to 
the  pope. 

The  pope  gladly  welcomed  an  opportunity  of  decrying 
Ludwig  as  a  harbourer  of  heretics,  as  the  protector  of  the 
Ghibelline  leaders  in  Upper  Italy — whom  he  had  con- 
demned as  heretics  —  and  the  patron  of  such  men  as 
Marsiglio,  John  of  Jandun,  and  the  Mystics.  Through 
the  interdict  which  the  pope  launched  upon  the  Ger- 
mans— a  spiritual  weapon  to  which  they  were  far  more 
sensitive  than  the  Eomans  —  and  through  the  indiffe- 
rent attitude  of  the  princes,  especially  of  the  Luxem- 
burg princes  who  served  the  policy  of  France,  confusion 
in  Germany  now  reached  its  highest  point,  and  the 
position  of  Ludwig  was  rendered  desperate.  It  afforded 
him  no  comfort  that  some  of  the  towns  of  Southern 
Germany,  for  whom  he  had  done  more  than  any  previous 
emperor,  endured  the  interdict  for  ten  years  with  exem- 
plary patience.  To  Ludwig  excommunication  and  the 
dread  of  the  consequences  beyond  the  grave  were  intoler- 
able. This  accounts  for  the  extraordinary  treaty  of  the 
year  1333,  by  which,  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  absolution, 
he  promised  to  abdicate  the  German  throne  in  favour  of 
his  cousin,  Duke  Henry  of  Bavaria;  Henry,  upon  his 
part,  undertaking  to  surrender  to  the  French  King  not 
only  all  disputed  frontier  lands,  but  all  the  Italian  lands 
stretching  from  the  Alps  to  the  Mediterranean,  together 
with  the  wide  district  appertaining  to  the  see  of  Cambrai, 
until  a  German  King  should  choose  to  redeem  them  at  the 
price  of  300,000  silver  marks.  Such  was  the  height  to 
which  the  power  of  the  French  King's  word  of  command 
had  risen  by  that  time  in  Avignon.  However,  this  was  too 
much  for  the  most  clear-sighted  prince  of  the  day,  Baldwin 


132    THE   STEUGGLE   OF  GERMANY   WITH  THE   PAPACY         v 

of  Treves.  The  treaty  was  never  signed,  and  the  death  of 
the  pope  took  place  shortly  afterwards. 

At  length,  in  the  year  1338,  the  electoral  princes  began 
to  bestir  themselves,  and  under  the  presidency  of  the  arch- 
bishop, Henry  of  Mainz,  who  for  pecuniary  reasons  had  been 
excommunicated  ten  years  previously,  they  unanimously 
drew  up  the  famous  Declaration  of  Eense,  withdrawing 
from  the  pope  any  right  of  interference  or  decision  upon 
the  election  of  an  emperor  by  a  majority  of  votes.  This 
was  a  defensive  act  equally  directed  against  France  and 
the  Curia,  to  which  no  parallel  can  be  found  before  or  since 
in  German  history. 

Yet  to  the  Emperor  Ludwig  it  brought  no  relief.  From 
Avignon  none  could  be  obtained,  since  John's  successors, 
Benedict  XII.  and  Clement  VI.,  both  of  them  truckled  to 
the  French  court.  The  knowledge  that  the  irreconcilable 
attitude  of  the  Papal  Curia  was  entirely  owing  to  the 
suggestions  of  the  French  King,  drove  the  emperor  in  1341 
into  a  humiliating  submission  towards  the  latter.  He 
threw  over  his  alliance  with  the  English  King,  gave  his 
word  to  the  French  King  that  the  territories  which  had 
been  torn  from  the  empire  should  not  be  reclaimed,  and 
received  in  return  a  promise  as  hypocritical  as  insulting, 
that  Philip  would  befriend  him  and,  out  of  consideration 
for  his  wife  and  children,  would  intercede  for  him  with 
the  pope.  But,  notwithstanding  all  the  sacrifices  he  had 
made  and  the  humiliations  he  had  suffered,  the  unlucky 
prince  died  excommunicate,  after  having  been  deposed 
by  the  electors.  For  the  spiritual  prince- electors— 
the  worst  foes  of  the  empire  upon  German  soil — had  again 
given  way  before  the  inducements  of  bribery,  and  had 
relapsed  into  subserviency  to  the  will  of  the  Curia. 
Charles  of  Luxemburg  had  given  and  promised  in  Avignon, 
Paris,  and  on  the  Khine,  more  than  the  exhausted  Ludwig 
was  either  able  or  willing  to  afford.  In  Avignon  Charles 
had  consented  to  confirm  all  the  nominations  in  the  Ger- 
man Church  which  the  popes  had  made  in  defiance  of  the 


v  UNDER  THE   EMPEROR  LUDWIG   OF   BAVARIA         133 

rights  of  election ;  to  permit  all  disputes  between  Germany 
and  France  to  be  decided  by  the  French  pope  ;  and  had  at 
once  hastened  in  person  to  assist  the  King  of  France  in 
the  impending  attack  from  England. 

Never  assuredly  did  an  emperor  experience  so  fully 
as  Ludwig  what  it  means  to  become  the  representative 
of  an  empire  with  high-sounding  titles  and  extensive 
claims,  which  nevertheless,  through  the  carelessness  of  its 
sovereigns,  through  the  want  of  able  statesmen,  through 
perpetual  changes  of  dynasty,  might,  from  the  defenceless 
way  in  which  it  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the  Curia,  be  com- 
pared to  a  whale  stranded  helplessly  upon  the  shore. 
Nothing  had  been  achieved  in  the  way  of  a  written  consti- 
tutional code  ;  no  authentic  textbook  of  law  existed ;  no 
trustworthy  record  of  the  resolutions  of  the  Diet.  Opposed  to 
it  stood  the  hierarchy,  protected  on  every  side  by  the  bul- 
warks of  its  canonical  law  fashioned  during  the  last  150 
years  by  assiduous  codification,  not  unaided  by  fraud  and 
cunning  artifice.  The  Germans  of  that  time,  in  comparing 
their  own  country  and  people  with  the  people  and  country 
of  France,  had  every  cause  to  look  upon  the  latter  as  the 
land  of  culture,  intellect,  and  science,  whilst  amongst  them- 
selves they  could  only  mark  a  certain  amount  of  warlike 
prowess  and  ambition. 

The  German  Church  was  undoubtedly  the  richest  and 
most  powerful  in  the  world,  and  the  clergy  with  its  excel- 
lent organisation — its  episcopate  and  cathedral  chapters, 
its  abbeys  and  spiritual  orders — ranked  as  the  foremost 
and  by  far  the  most  influential  body  in  the  nation. 
The  state  of  things  which  we  have  been  considering  had 
been  rendered  possible  only  through  the  partly  indifferent, 
partly  hostile  manner  in  which  the  church  regarded  the 
empire  and  the  interests  of  the  German  people.  How  is 
this  to  be  explained  ? 

In  1288  a  German  Minorite  monk,  whose  name  has 
not  been  preserved,  wrote  that  in  his  opinion  the  empire 
could  not  sink  lower  than  it  had  done  without  being  utterty 


134  THE  STRUGGLE  OF  GERMANY  WITH  THE  PAPACY   v 

destroyed,  nor  could  the  high-priesthood  (the  paprcy^  rise 
higher  unless,  stripped  of  its  apostolic  character,  it  were 
entirely  transformed  into  a  secular  power.  He  was  vastly 
mistaken  as  to  the  depth  to  which  the  German  Kingdom 
and  Empire  could  fall ;  but  he  made  a  remarkable  conjec- 
ture in  supposing  it  possible  that  the  Eoman  chair  might 
annihilate  the  German  Empire  with  the  assistance  of 
France;  whereupon,  to  be  sure,  he  adds,  in  accordance 
with  current  prophecy,  Antichrist  with  all  attc  n  lant  evils 
would  immediately  appear.  Further  on  he  directly  points 
to  the  clergy  in  common  with  the  French  as  the  enemies 
who  would  bring  about  the  ruin  of  the  German  Kingdom. 
With  this  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  empire  still 
continued  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  greatest  ornament  of 
the  lay  world,  and  the  highest  secular  dignity.  The  cease- 
less enmity  betwixt  clergy  and  laity  was  at  that  time 
accepted  as  a  kind  of  natural  necessity,  owing  to  the 
feeling — in  itself  right  enough — that  a  priestly  kingdom 
like  that  of  the  papacy  would  be  endured  by  the  whole  lay 
world,  but  always  only  with  reluctance,  as  a  heavy  yoke 
and  a  hard  bondage.  Boniface  VIII.,  in  the  famous  bull 
clericis  laicos,  points  out  as  a  fact  admitted  in  early  times, 
that  the  laity  are  hostile  to  the  clergy.  In  1828,  and  there- 
fore just  when  the  struggle  between  emperor  and  pope  was 
at  its  height,  Bishop  Alvarus  Pelagius,  employed  in  the 
service  of  the  papal  court,  speaks  of  the  hatred  of  the 
laity  for  the  clergy  as  an  understood  thing,  cites  the  canon 
law  in  proof  of  it,  and  draws  the  conclusion  that  the 
clergy  ought  necessarily  on  that  account  to  be  inde  aent 
of  any  secular  power,  although  he  presently  admits  that 
the  laity  in  general  are  better,  more  moral,  and  more 
devout  than  the  clergy,  who  had  been  utterly  corrupted  by 
the  doctrine,  precept,  and  example  of  their  superiors  from 
the  popes  downwards. 

Fully  a  century  and  a  half  before  this,  a  Bavarian 
theologian,  Gerhoch  of  Eeichersberg,  had  with  strange  sim- 
plicity accounted  for  the  hostile  feelings  of  the  clergy  for  the 


v  UNDER  THE   EMPEROR  LUDWIG   OF   BAVARIA         135 

empire.  It  was  in  the  divine  counsels,  he  considered,  that 
the  great  empire  should  be  broken  up  into  weak  princi- 
palities, so  that  the  clergy  should  be  entirely  safe  from 
oppression  under  the  sole  sheltering  power  of  the  great 
and  divinely  appointed  priest  who  filled  the  Eoman  chair, 
sitting  supreme  above  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth. 
Shortly  before  the  Emperor  Ludwig's  time,  the  French 
King  Philip  the  Fair  had  engaged  in  a  dispute  with  Pope 
Boniface  VIII.  similar  to  that  which  it  now  fell  to  the 
lot  of  Ludwig  to  carry  on  with  the  popes  in  Avignon. 
But  whereas  Ludwig,  and  with  him  the  German  Empire, 
were  overcome  in  the  contest,  victory  remained  with  the 
monarch  of  the  Seine,  and  the  papacy  suffered  a  hitherto 
unexampled  defeat.  If  we  compare  the  position  of  the  com- 
batants, the  means  and  the  methods  which  were  brought 
to  bear  in  the  one  struggle  and  the  other,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  perceive  wherein  the  chief  cause  of  the  weakness  of 
Germany  lay. 

King  Philip  was  the  representative  of  a  slowly  but 
steadily  growing  power.  Whilst  the  law  of  France  for- 
bade any  alienation  of  the  crown  lands  in  Germany,  Lud- 
wig upon  his  accession  came  into  but  a  fraction  of  the 
former  imperial  power  and  resources  of  government,  and 
witnessed  the  disappearance  during  his  own  reign  of  part 
of  these.  The  empire  was  almost  without  revenues.  With- 
out statesmen  or  useful  advisers,  Ludwig  had  to  fall  back 
upon  foreigners,  chiefly  Italians,  who  flocked  to  Munich, 
and  belonged  almost  entirely  to  the  party  of  the  Mystics. 
Men  of  ability  were  wanting  at  that  time  in  Germany  in 
almost  every  department  of  knowledge ;  there  were  neither 
theologians  nor  jurists,  nor  did  there  then  exist  a  single 
famous  school.  Bavaria  in  particular,  in  spite  of  the 
number  of  her  monastic  establishments,  could  boast  of  no 
celebrated  theological  writer  since  the  death  of  Gerhoch  of 
Keichersberg,  that  is  to  say  during  the  last  150  years. 

France,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  University  of  Paris 
possessed  the  oracle  of  all  Europe.  Her  theologians  were 


136    THE   STRUGGLE   OF  GERMANY  WITH   THE   PAPACY         v 

numerous,  and  she  had  a  number  of  legal  professors, 
men  like  Flotte,  Nogaret,  William  of  Plasian,  the  brothers 
Marigni,  who,  well  versed  in  the  Roman  as  well  as  the 
canon  law,  had  gathered  round  the  king,  and  were  ready 
to  meet  every  attack  of  the  popes  with  a  counter  attack. 
The  influence  of  the  political  and  religious  pamphlet  was 
first  made  sensible  in  Europe  through  their  writings. 

Clever  and  skilful,  Philip  and  his  advisers  knew  how  to 
stimulate  the  national  feeling  in  France  against  the  pope. 
Boniface,  copying  the  precedent  of  Innocent  III.,  had  de- 
clared that  the  king  in  matters  of  conscience  owed  alle- 
giance to  him,  i.e.  that  the  pope  could  if  it  pleased  him 
punish  the  king,  reverse  his  decisions,  and  cancel  any  act 
either  of  his  public  or  private  life.  Thereupon  the  king 
and  his  advisers  suggested  to  the  people  that  the  pope 
had  pronounced  the  French  crown  to  be  held  in  fief,  and 
the  king  to  be  a  vassal  of  the  papal  throne.  In  point  of 
fact  the  papal  claims  went  much  further,  arrogating  to  the 
pope,  according  to  his  pleasure,  and  for  the  advantage 
of  the  Curia,  an  authoritative  right  of  interference  in  all 
things — even  in  the  affairs  of  family  life.  To  the  popular 
mind,  however,  the  thought  that  the  kingdom  could  be 
held  in  fee  from  a  foreigner  was  still  more  incomprehen- 
sible and  repulsive.  The  whole  nation  rose  against  the 
idea,  for  the  pride  of  the  Frenchman  was  that  his  king  was 
independent,  and  not  the  vassal  of  the  pope.  Boniface 
now  desisted  from  the  assertion  that  he  was  the  liege  lord 
of  the  king,  but  he  maintained — against  '  French  arro- 
gance,' as  he  expressed  it — that  the  German  Emperor, 
who  since  the  transfer  by  the  papal  see  of  the  empire 
from  the  Greeks  to  the  Germans,  partook  of  the  pope's 
power  through  the  coronation,  was  the  suzerain  of  the 
French.  Upon  this,  bishops  and  nobles,  priesthood  and 
laity,  lawyers  and  theologians,  nay  even  the  monastic  orders, 
the  most  faithful  and  unquestioning  servants  of  the  papacy, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Cistercians,  rallied  like  one  man 
to  the  side  of  the  king  against  the  pope. 


v  UNDER  THE   EMPEROR  LUDWIG  OF  BAVARIA  .      137 

How  different  now  was  the  situation  of  Ludwig  and  the 
behaviour  of  the  Germans  !  Philip  no  doubt  had  done  pre- 
cisely what  Ludwig  now  did ;  he  had  raised  the  accusation  of 
heresy  against  the  pope.  But  he  had  gone  much  more  cir- 
cumspectly to  work,  and  had  been  more  considerate  of  domi- 
nant ideas.  He  avoided  charging  the  pope  with  any  dis- 
tinct accusation  of  heresy ;  only,  as  the  hereditary  champion 
and  defender  of  the  faith,  he  demanded  that  the  pope 
should  answer  for  his  faith  and  doctrine  before  a  general 
council  of  the  church,  to  which  at  the  same  time  he  appealed. 

The  popes  in  Avignon  were  beyond  the  reach  of  feudwig's 
power,  but  Philip  had  had  his  adherents  and  partisans  in  the 
immediate  circle  of  Boniface,  universally  detested  as  he  was 
amongst  the  cardinals,  amongst  the  members  of  the  power- 
ful family  of  Colonnas  and  their  dependants,  and  amongst 
the  Mystics  and  all  who  held  Boniface  to  be  unlawfully  pope 
on  account  of  Celestine  V.  having  had  no  right  to  resign. 
It  was  the  Colonnas  and  their  allies  who  committed  the 
outrage  upon  Boniface  at  Anagni.  The  part  played  by  Nogaret 
in  this  affair  was  so  insignificant  that  his  name  is  not  even 
mentioned  in  the  report  of  an  eye-witness  which  has  recently 
come  to  light ;  he  did  no  more  than  lay  before  the  pope,  in 
the  name  of  his  master  the  king  and  the  French  nation,  a 
citation  to  appear  before  a  general  council.  Philip  and  his 
advisers  were  too  clever  to  be  the  movers  in  a  deed  which 
could  only  bring  odium  upon  them,  and  by  which  they  had 
nothing  to  gain. 

it  may  be  affirmed  with  truth  that  the  genuine  ancient 
empire  which  contained  a  German  kingdom,  came  to  an 
end  with  the  Emperor  Ludwig  the  Bavarian.  None 
strove  again  after  his  death  to  restore  the  imperial  power. 
The  golden  bull  of  his  successor  Charles  TV.  sealed  the  fate 
of  the  old  empire.  Through  it,  and  indeed  through  the 
entire  conduct  of  Charles  IV.,  King  of  Bohemia  as  he  really 
was,  and  emperor  scarcely  more  than  in  name,  the  imperial 
government  passed  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of  the 
prince-electors,  who  came  to  regard  the  emperor  no  longer 


138  THE  STKUGGLE  OF  GERMANY  WITH  THE  PAPACY    T 

as  their  master,  but  as  the  president  of  an  assembly  in  which 
he  shared  the  power  with  themselves. 

The  aim  and  object  of  the  two  allied  powers,  France  and 
the  papacy,  had  been  attained.  Henceforth  the  German 
crown  might  become  hereditary,  for  the  popes  deemed  that 
they  had  done  enough  in  undermining  the  strength  of  the 
empire  and  weakening  German  nationality,  and  that  it 
would  be  carrying  this  policy  too  far  to  allow  the  princes  to 
become  the  prey  of  France.  With  an  interval  of  ten  years 
during  which  Kupert  of  the  Palatinate  reigned,  the  house 
of  Luxemburg  ruled  for  ninety  years,  and  when  the  race 
became  extinct  with  Sigismund,  the  Habsburgs  once  more 
filled  the  throne  until  the  empire  came  to  an  end. 

From  the  time  of  Charles  IV.  the  main  object  and  chief 
occupation  of  the  emperors  was  not  the  empire,  but  the 
aggrandisement  and  security  of  their  own  house.  The 
empire  served  only  as  the  means  and  instrument  of  their 
purpose. 

The  empire  of  the  Habsburgs  certainly  rested  from  the 
seventeenth  century  upon  the  broad  and  stable  foundation 
of  extensive  hereditary  possessions.  But  their  hereditary 
estates  were  chiefly  non-German,  in  speech,  nationality,  and 
interests,  and  in  every  instance  of  collision  the  rights  and 
possessions  of  the  empire  were  sacrificed  to  dynastic  inte- 
rests. 

We  have  now  entered  upon  a  new  phase ;  a  dynasty, 
whose  members  are  the  heirs  of  a  great,  united,  and  purely 
German  kingdom,  itself  comprising  the  half  of  Germany,  has 
become  the  bearer  of  the  imperial  sceptre.  By  this  means 
most  of  those  troubles  and  drawbacks  which  once  checked 
the  growth  of  Germany  and  prevented  the  attainment  of 
that  strength  and  prosperity  to  which,  had  it  been  united, 
it  would  have  been  entitled,  have  been  removed.  One 
hindrance  indeed,  and  that  one  of  the  worst,  has  again 
become  active. 

Nevertheless  we  may  say  without  being  over-presunip- 
tuous  :  Novus  ab  integro  scecloram  nascitar  ordo. 


139 


VI 

AVENTIN    AND    HIS    TIMES1 

A  FESTIVAL  was  lately  held  in  Abensburg  in  memory  of  a 
native  of  that  town,  a  man  to  whom  I  woul'd  upon  this 
occasion  seek  to  draw  the  attention  of  this  distinguished 
assembly. 2  Breyer,  speaking  in  behalf  of  our  Academy  at 
the  first  public  meeting  after  its  revival  in  1807,  described 
the  merit  of  this  man,  and  his  importance  as  the  *  father  of 
the  history  of  his  fatherland.'  But  Aventin  has  such  a 
striking  personality,  he  occupies  such  an  honourable  posi- 
tion in  Bavaria,  almost  unique  (one  may  say),  and  un- 
rivalled during  the  course  of  several  centuries ;  his  writings 
too  are  of  such  value,  even  to  the  present  generation,  that 
the  Academy  is  but  discharging  a  debt  in  again,  after  seventy 
years,  bringing  him  into  notice.  Not  with  regard  to  the 
circumstances  of  his  life ;  so  far  as  they  can  be  known 
they  have  been  fully  investigated.  We  shall  be  better  repaid 
by  contemplating  him  in  the  light  of  his  times,  depicting 
how  he  stood  in  relation  to  his  own  epoch,  and  it  to  him ; 
the  mental  atmosphere  in  which  he  lived,  the  inspirations 
he  inhaled  from  it,  and  the  opposing  forces  of  love  and  hate 
in  which  he  moved.  For  his  were  times  teeming  with 
complex  aims  and  aspirations  ;  the  mission  was  imposed 
upon  them  of  solving  problems  which  are  amongst  the 
highest  and  most  difficult  that  concern  mankind,  and  the 
ground  of  religious  faith  trembled,  so  to  speak,  under  the 

1  Address  delivered  at  the  public  sitting  of  the  Academy  of  Munich ,. 
August  25,  1877 ;  printed  also  by  the  Academy. 

2  The  Academy  and  its  guests. 


140  AVENTIN   AND   HIS   TIMES  TI 

feet  of  that  generation.  Yet  the  man  who  is  engaging  our 
attention  showed  himself  equal  to  his  times,  took  his  share 
in  the  wrestling,  strife,  and  suffering  that  distinguished  them, 
and,  even  in  the  last  decade  of  his  life  when  things  went  badly 
in  Bavaria,  stoutly  resolved  not  to  give  way  to  faint-hearted 
despondency.  At  an  epoch  when  the  history  of  nations  was 
decided  less  upon  the  battle-field  and  in  the  cabinets  of 
princes  and  diplomatists  than  in  the  closet  of  the  student, 
Aventin  took  his  place  as  a  pioneer  in  thoughtful  research. 
Opinions  originating  in  such  minds  are  those  which  by 
degrees  subjugated  the  leaders  of  states,  and  drove  them 
into  new  paths,  or  at  least  compelled  them  in  their  own 
interests  to  work  with  them  and  not  oppose  them. 

The  works  of  Aventin  are  not  merely  tokens  of  learned 
industry  and  calm  objective  research  ;  they  are  monuments 
of  the  mode  of  thought  and  the  bent  of  men's  minds  which 
prevailed  in  Germany  at  the  period  when  these  works  were 
composed.  The  impression  of  the  great  occurrences  which 
had  either  just  before  taken  place,  or  of  which  the  successive 
scenes  were  at  that  moment  following  one  another  with 
dramatic  rapidity  upon  the  theatre  of  the  world,  is  traceable 
throughout  his  writings,  and  is  perceptible  to  the  acute 
observer  even  where  it  is  not  actually  expressed  in  words. 
The  historian  obliges  us  therefore  to  follow  him  not  only 
through  the  past  which  he  sets  before  us,  but  through  the 
contemporaneous  history  of  his  day.  Since  Aventin 
neither  could  nor  would  stoop  to  being  a  mere  dry  copyist 
or  annalist,  he  becomes,  even  where  he  keeps  strictly  to 
the  source  from  which  he  draws,  an  original  author  ;  present 
experience  and  the  story  of  the  past  are  united  in  his  mind 
to  form  a  theory  upon  the  course  of  the  universe  ;  a 
theodicy.  By  the  light  of  his  theory  he  selects,  arranges, 
and  explains  the  events  which  he  relates,  and  with  overflow- 
ing feeling  he  throws  into  his  narrative,  wherever  the 
slightest  opening  presents  itself,  an  exposition  of  his  own 
opinion  upon  passing  occurrences.  The  situation,  therefore, 
of  Europe,  especially  of  Germany,  between  1477  and 


vi  AVENTIN  AND  HIS  TIMES  141 

1534,  furnishes  the  key  by  which  to  understand  and  appre- 
ciate Aventin's  writings  ;  and  these  writings  in  their  turn 
are  an  instructive  source  of  information  upon  a  time  in 
which  the  ferment  of  new  forces  and  fresh  interests  was 
so  marked  that  even  after  prolonged  study  new  and  striking 
points  of  view  continually  present  themselves  to  the  seeker. 

The  period  of  fifty-seven  years  which  covers  Aventin's 
lifetime  falls  distinctly  into  two  sections :  (1)  the  first,  includ- 
ing the  last  years  of  the  middle  ages ;  (2)  the  second,  marking 
the  commencement  of  a  new  era.  In  the  intellectual  world 
the  former  is  the  period  of  Humanism,  the  latter  of  the 
Reformation,  the  latter  being  the  outcome  of  the  former. 
The  course  of  Aventin's  life  and  the  texture  of  his  mind  are 
what  might  be  expected  from  this.  To  the  humanists  he 
owes  his  classical  culture  and  his  critical  and  historical 
ability  ;  amongst  them  some  were  his  teachers,  and  several 
his  personal  friends  ;  at  a  more  advanced  stage  of  his 
career  he  lives  and  moves  among  the  thoughts  and  hopes 
of  the  Eeformation. 

In  the  ancient  history  of  Greece  and  Eome  the  human- 
ists possessed  a  province  in  which,  undisturbed  by  the 
suspicions  and  threats  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  they 
were  free  to  dispose  of  things  as  they  liked  and  to  ripen 
their  faculties  for  criticism  and  historical  investigation. 
Humanism  thus  served  the  Germans  as  a  preparatory 
school  for  the  great  religious  struggle  which,  long  approach- 
ing, and  now  wanting  only  a  spark  to  set  it  ablaze, 
burst  out  when  the  signal  was  simultaneously  given  from 
Wittenberg  and  Zurich.  It  is  a  matter  of  great  import- 
ance that  German  humanism,  although  engendered 
and  fostered  under  Italian  influences,  had  speedily  made 
itself  independent  and  beaten  out  a  path  of  its  own. 
Whilst  Italian  philologians  and  rhetoricians  were  only  re- 
strained by  fear  of  the  coercive  power  of  the  church  from 
giving  open  expression  to  their  infidelity  and  contempt 
for  Christianity,  or  at  any  rate  studiously  avoided  and 
silently  shifted  their  ground  from  the  subject  of  religion,  the 


142  AVENTIN  AND  HIS   TIMES  vi 

German  humanists,  on  the  contrary,  showed  signs  of  a  deep- 
ening seriousness  in  religious  faith,  often  joined  with  a  desire 
for  church  reform.  If  an  aversion  to  the  Eoman  court  was 
betrayed  by  most  of  them,  it  was  prompted  as  much  by 
German  patriotism  as  by  religious  feelings,  for  German 
humanism  was  thoroughly  national  in  character,  equally 
ready  to  turn  against  the  Curia  or  against  France,  which 
was  even  then  casting  covetous  eyes  towards  the  Ehine 
frontier.  The  humanists  by  that  time  had  extended  them- 
selves like  a  great  brotherhood  over  the  whole  of  Europe  ; 
Erasmus  indeed  was  the  recognised  head  of  the  movement, 
and  was  everywhere  received  with  homage  like  a  king  in  the 
realm  of  intellect.  But  it  is  precisely  in  him  that  we  be- 
come aware  of  the  difference  referred  to  above  ;  the  tone  of 
his  mind  is  emphatically  religious  and  so  to  speak  polemi- 
cal. The  Germans  took  life  and  learning  more  seriously 
than  did  their  brethren  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps,  and 
were  in  consequence  free  alike  from  courtly  arrogance  and 
vanity,  and  from  the  proneness  to  petty  squabbling  which 
disfigured  the  Italian  character.  In  this  as  in  all  the  other 
relations  of  life,  Aventin's  feelings  were  those  of  a  German. 
In  his  history,  when  he  sums  up  the  epoch  in  which  he  lived 
— and  which  he  had  otherwise  depicted  in  the  gloomiest 
colours — as  a  period  peculiarly  blessed,  it  is  because  Erasmus 
has  brought  to  light  the  original  text  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  had  for  the  first  time  given  to  the  world  a  genuine 
version  of  it.  Thus  imbued  with  the  learning  and  spirit  of 
the  humanists,  Aventin — as  an  instructor  of  princes — takes 
up  the  pen  of  the  historian ;  but  this  only  after  years  of 
wandering  spent  in  visiting  many  countries  and  towns.  He 
had  seen,  as  he  himself  relates,  fifteen  universities,  amongst 
others  Vienna,  Paris,  and  Cracow ;  and  he  knew  Switzer- 
land, Poland,  Italy,  and  France  from  personal  observation. 
This  taste  for  travel  he  shared  with  many  of  his  contempo- 
raries ;  it  grew  out  of  that  cosmopolitan  impulse  which  to 
this  day  is  implanted  in  the  breast  of  the  German,  and 
now  drives  him  far  from  his  home  over  land  and  sea, 


vi  AVENTIN  AND   HIS  TIMES  143 

but  which  at  that  time  was  strengthened  by  the  thirst 
for  knowledge,  and  the  insufficiency  of  the  means  of  edu- 
cation at  home.  When  neither  daily  publications  nor 
periodicals  existed,  no  other  way  was  open  but  travel 
whereby  to  gain  acquaintance  with  the  world  and  a 
knowledge  of  the  features  of  the  time  and  of  contemporary 
history  ;  in  this  way  only  was  it  possible  for  a  thought- 
ful man  to  compare  the  circumstances  of  his  own  land  with 
those  of  foreign  countries  in  order  to  arrive  at  an  indepen- 
dent judgment. 

When  Aventin  received  from  his  princely  patrons  the 
commission  to  write  a  history  of  Bavaria,  he  travelled 
through  the  whole  of  Bavaria  and  the  neighbouring  pro- 
vinces, and  carried  on  his  studies  and  researches  in  ninety 
different  places — towns,  castles,  and  cloisters.  Besides  in- 
tellectual profit,  he  acquired  by  this  means  such  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  his  fatherland  in  the  narrower  and  wider 
sense,  i.e.  of  both  Bavaria  and  Germany — their  legal, 
economic,  and  ethical  conditions — as  far  exceeded  that  of 
any  of  his  contemporaries.  But  besides  the  comprehensive 
views  which  distinguish  his  works,  we  are  struck  by  another 
feature  which  pervades  them  more  or  less  openly  from  first 
to  last :  the  pathos  of  the  ardent  patriot,  of  the  prophet 
anxious  and  apprehensive  for  his  people  and  country,  who, 
having  read  in  the  past  the  inevitable  future,  holds  up  the 
mirror  of  history  by  way  of  warning  to  his  countrymen, 
reminds  them  of  the  possessions  and  privileges  which  they 
have  already  lost,  and  points  out  the  peril  of  a  yet  deeper 
fall,  whilst  bringing  to  their  notice  ways  and  means  for 
renovation  and  recovery.  Broad  and  full  is  the  stream 
of  instruction  and  admonition  which  flows  from  the  reser- 
voir of  his  historical  knowledge  to  fertilise  the  thirsty  fields 
of  his  country's  intellectual  barrenness.  But  he  often  yields 
to  the  impulse  to  relieve  his  over-burdened  heart  of  the 
sorrows  he  has  seen  and  experienced ;  it  is  the  irrepress- 
ible outbreak  of  a  deep  and  painful  conviction,  and  his 
wrathful  rebukes  strike  home,  at  one  moment  cutting  and 


144  AVENTIN   AND   HIS   TIMES 


VI 


pointed  as  a  dagger,  at  another  heavy  as  the  blow  of  a 
club. 

The  result  of  all  this  is  the  production  of  a  work  widely 
different  from  the  adulatory,  superficial  historiography 
penned  by  writers  like  the  Italian  humanists,  whom  princes 
entertained  at  their  courts  that  they  might  celebrate  the 
deeds  of  their  patrons.  To  this  end  had  Henry  VII.  of 
England  sent  for  and  engaged  the  services  of  Polidoro 
Vergilio — just  as  Louis  XII.  had  summoned  Paolo  Emilio  ; 
Matthias  Corvinus  of  Hungary,  Bonfini;  and  Casimir  of 
Poland,  Buonaccorsi  or  Callimachus — and  commissioned 
him  to  become  the  historian  of  his  country.  They  composed 
fluent  readable  books  filled  with  fables,  in  which  elegance 
of  style  was  principally  aimed  at,  and  criticism  or  investi- 
gation into  the  accuracy  of  the  sources  from  which  the 
author  drew,  was  ignored. 

If  we  now  inquire  what  impression  was  produced  upon 
Aventin  himself  by  surrounding  circumstances  and  his  own 
researches  into  them,  in  what  light  they  must  have  appeared 
to  him,  we  must  remember,  to  begin  with,  that  Aventin 
was  a  zealous  patriot  devoted  to  the  princes  of  his  race,  and 
heart  and  soul  attached  to  the  German  Kingdom  and  Em- 
pire.    Patriotism  was  a  sentiment  common  to  the  human- 
ists of  that  period — Wimpfeling,  Celtes,  Bebel,  Peutinger, 
Hutten  are  amongst  those  whom  I  call  to  mind — but  with 
Aventin  it  had  been  developed  by  his  studies,  and  so  per- 
vades the  whole  man  and  animates  his  works.      Yet  as 
regards  his  views  upon  the  importance  and  dignity  of  the 
empire  he  belongs  entirely  to  the  middle  ages.     Germany 
to  him  is  the  Eoman  Empire  of  the  German  nation,  the 
fourth  and  last  monarchy  of  Daniel's  prophecy,  with  the 
duration  of  which  the  existence  of  the  world  is  bound  up. 
It  is,  he  considers,  a  great  favour  and  the  highest  earthly 
honour  to  the  Germans  that  God  should  have  appointed 
them  to  be  the  upholders  and  representatives  of  the  Eoman 
name ;  only  let  them  see  to  it  that  they  never  forfeit  this 
name. 


vr  AYENTIN   AND   HIS  TIMES  145 

The  empire  was  still,  according  to  the  social  and  re- 
ligious views  of  the  time,  held  to  be  an  indispensable  and 
divinely  appointed  institution ;  without  the  empire  the 
great  Christian  republic,  which  in  face  of  the  encroaching 
power  of  the  Turks  was  much  alive  to  the  sense  of  unity, 
would  have  seemed  but  a  mutilated  and  helpless  trunk.  To 
the  princes  the  emperor  was  indispensable,  for  it  was  he  who 
gave  legal  embodiment  to  their  demands  and  pretensions ; 
to  the  towns  he  was  needful  as  a  protection  against  the 
princes ;  the  peasantry,  when  it  enrolled  itself  in  brother- 
hoods or  revolted  against  its  oppressors,  inscribed  the  name 
of  the  emperor  upon  its  banners,  and  would  fain  have  cast 
off  the  yoke  of  intermediate  powers  to  obey  the  emperor 
alone,  who  certainly  bid  fair  to  be  an  easier  master. 
The  emperors  themselves  ended  by  valuing  the  imperial 
dignity  and  the  power  that  remained  with  it  merely  as  a 
means  of  founding  a  dynasty  and  of  establishing  and  ex- 
tending their  family  power. 

Aventin,  who  had  been  absorbed  in  the  study  of  the 
Saxon,  Salic,  and  Hohenstaufen  emperors,  naturally  per- 
ceived in  this  state  of  things  tokens  of  deep  and  merited 
degradation,  increasing  weakness  abroad,  and  a  continual 
loosening  of  the  old  forms  which  constituted  the  strength 
of  the  empire  at  home.  In  his  youth  he  had  seen  the 
end  of  the  long  inglorious  reign  of  Frederick  III.,  and 
seen  too  that  the  empire  had  not  so  much  as  afforded  4,000 
men  to  help  the  emperor,  despised  even  by  his  own  here- 
ditary subjects,  against  the  Turks.  Then  followed  the 
humiliating  reverses  of  Germany  during  the  Swiss  war  and 
the  separation  of  Switzerland  from  the  German  Empire. 
Prussia  had  already  been  lost  to  Poland  after  a  desperate 
struggle,  Milan  soon  fell  into  the  hands  of  France,  and  the 
loss  of  the  Burgundian  countries,  Belgium,  and  the  Nether- 
lands was  already  threatened. 

Although  Frederick  III.,  who  for  twenty-five  years  bad 
never  set  foot  in  Germany,  had  done  all  that  was  pos- 
sible to  -estrange  the  affections  of  the  people,  his  son  Max- 

L 


146  AVENTIN  AND  HIS  TIMES  vi 

imilian  was  personally  much  beloved,  was  exalted  by  the 
humanists  as  a  patron  of  literature  and  science,  and  as  a 
prince  who  by  inclination  and  interest  was  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  German  nationality  and  to  the  preservation  of 
ancient  ways.  But  misfortune  attended  all  his  undertak- 
ings, and  not  undeservedly  so,  from  the  short-sighted  un- 
stable policy  by  which  he  forfeited  the  confidence  of  those 
around  him.  The  well-meaning  attempts  of  two  of  the  elec- 
toral princes,  Berthold  of  Mainz  and  Frederick  of  Saxony,  to 
renovate  the  strength  of  the  German  Empire-Kingdom  by 
the  introduction  of  fresh  institutions,  had  almost  failed 
And  when,  after  Maximilian's  death,  three  youthful  and 
powerful  kings  came  forward  as  rival  candidates  for  the 
succession,  the  electors  made  a  shameless  traffic  of  their 
votes,  and  it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  the  empire 
was  put  up  to  the  highest  bidder. 

It  was  just  at  that  moment  that  Aventin  was  engaged 
upon  the  first  book  of  his  'Chronicle,'  and  he  observes,  '  I 
know  not  the  cause  of  the  imperial  election  being  so  long 
delayed ;  but  even  if  I  knew,  it  would  not  be  lawful  to 
say.'  Such  a  manner  of  breaking  off,  with  a  hint  of  imposed 
silence,  is  frequent  in  Aventin's  writings.  Out  of  consider- 
ation for  his  patron  Duke  William,  who  had  commissioned 
him  to  write,  he  had  very  sufficient  reason  for  not  being  too 
communicative  on  a  subject  of  contemporary  history.  In 
the  course  of  his  narrative,  continued  down  to  the  time  of 
his  death  fifteen  years  later,  it  becomes  more  and  more  per- 
ceptible that  Charles,  upon  whom  the  hopes  of  the  Germans 
had  at  first  been  confidently  centred,  but  who  had  coveted 
the  imperial  crown  for  the  sole  purpose  of  adding  to  the 
territories  of  his  own  house,  had  no  intention  of  fulfilling 
any  of  their  hopes,  but  had  different  ends  in  view,  and, 
although  endeavouring  to  restore  the  empire  to  its  ancient 
might  and  grandeur,  had  neither  understanding  nor  sym- 
pathy for  the  wants  of  Germany,  or  for  her  spiritual  or 
intellectual  advancement. 

The  hopes  which  had  brightened  the  beginning  of  the 


vi  AVENTIN  AND  HIS  TIMES  147 

new  emperor's  reign,  and  their  subsequent  overthrow, 
are  patent  in  Aventin's  works.  The  '  Annals '  give  an 
account  of  the  coronation  in  Eome  of  Charles  the  Great  as 
emperor,  representing  the  occurrence  as  brought  about 
through  election  by  the  Koman  Senate  and  people  in 
combination  with  the  pope,  and  observing  in  addition  how 
the  glorious  empire  has  fallen  into  decay  and  decrepitude 
in  consequence  of  the  feebleness  of  the  emperors,  the 
cowardice  of  the  princes,  and  the  intrigues  of  the  popes. 
Yet  they  conclude  with  the  hope  that  under  the  younger 
and  greater  Charles  the  empire  will  rise  to  new  strength. 
Thus  he  wrote  in  the  year  1519.  Eleven  years  later  in  a 
corresponding  passage  in  the '  Chronicle '  this  hope,  together 
with  the  mention  of  the  decay  of  the  empire  and  its  causes, 
has  entirely  disappeared. 

It  was  under-  influences  and  experiences  of  this  kind 
that  Aventin  composed  his  historical  work,  the  first  which 
set  before  the  German  people  a  fuller  and  more  correct 
account  of  their  former  greatness  and  of  the  causes  of 
their  decay  than  they  had  hitherto  seen.  The  Bavarian 
history  which  he  was  commissioned  to  write  soon  developed 
in  his  hands  into  a  history  of  Germany ;  indeed  it  would 
have  been  scarcely  possible  at  that  time  to  write  a  separate 
history  of  Bavaria — it  would  have  been  hardly  more  than 
a  collection  of  disjointed  notices.  He  himself  intended 
his  work  for  the  instruction  not  only  of  all  Germans  but  of  all 
Christian  nations  ;  for  he  pointedly  remarks  that  ignorance 
of  history  had  been  a  great  cause  of  loss  and  disadvantage 
to  the  empire  and  to  the  whole  of  Christendom.  Any  one 
writing  history,  like  Aventin,  for  the  use  and  edification  of 
his  contemporaries,  must  at  that  time  have  cast  equally 
anxious  glances  towards  the  west,  south,  and  east.  To- 
wards the  west — because,  however  strong  the  antipathy  of 
the  nation  already  was  to  France,  the  submissiveness  of 
the  princes  of  the  empire  to  French  policy  had  become  an 
understood  thing  ;  towards  the  south — because  the  fate  of 
the  German  nation  always  hung  more  upon  the  decisions  of 

L  ?, 


148  AVENTIN  AND  HIS  TIMES  vi 

the  pope  than  upon  the  will  of  the  princes  or  even  of  the  em- 
peror ;  towards  the  east — because  the  Turks  were  pressing 
onwards  with  increasing  fury  over  the  frontier  of  the  empire, 
and  in  1529  they  already  stood  before  the  gates  of  Vienna. 
In  the  preface  to  his  work,  where  he  holds  before  his 
people  the  mirror  of  their  errors,  Aventin,  in  conformity 
with  predictions  universally  credited  at  the  time,  describes 
the  Turks  as  the  instruments  of  divine  judgment  employed 
for  the  chastisement  of  the  Germans. 

The  judgment  which  Aventin  passes  upon  the  French 
nation  in  one  passage  of  his  history  brings  me  to  a  peculi- 
arity in  his  composition  which,  objectionable  as  it  might 
now  seem,  was  not  then  without  example,  although  he  may 
be  accused  of  carrying  it  further  than  any  of  his  contempo- 
raries. He  allows  himself  to  put  his  own  feelings,  lamenta- 
tions and  reproaches,  wishes  and  opinions,  into  the  mouths 
of  prominent  personages  of  the  time  of  which  he  writes, 
that  under  this  transparent  cloak  he  may  set  -them  safely 
yet  forcibly  before  his  readers. 

An  instance  of  this  is  in  the  speech  of  Bishop  Conrad 
of  Utrecht  at  the  meeting  at  Gerstungen ;  another,  in  the 
speech  of  Archbishop  Eberhard  of  Salzburg,  so  often 
quoted  and  printed ;  again,  in  the  severe  lecture  addressed 
by  Pope  Alexander  to  the  German  clergy ;  and  lastly,  in 
the  document  in  wrhich  Henry  V.,  in  the  year  1107,  not 
only  sharply  rebukes  the  French — '  that  wanton  and  super- 
stitious people  ' — for  meddling  with  German  affairs  in  taking 
part  with  Paschal  II.  during  the  war  of  Investitures,  but 
throws  the  blame  of  his  own  rebellion  against  his  father 
upon  the  priests,  who,  he  complains,  had  deluded  him  and 
led  him  astray  when  a  youth.  So  far  as  I  can  make  out, 
Aventin  has  spun  this  whole  tirade  out  of  the  short  notice 
in  Ekkehard,  where  the  emperor  is  said  to  have  declared 
that  he  would  accept  no  decisions  made  in  foreign  coun- 
tries concerning  his  rights.  These  fictions,  the  tone  and 
purport  of  which  were  not  a  little  influenced  by  the  violent 
pamphlet  issued  by  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  are  certainly, 


vi  AVENTIN   AND   HIS   TIMES  149 

although  brilliant  in  style,  no  embellishment  to  Aventin's 
works ;  they  are  anachronisms ;  for  fear  of  the  conse- 
quences if  he  should  put  forward  such  things  as  his  own 
views,  he  puts  the  language  of  the  Reformation  into  the 
mouths  of  people  of  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and  thirteenth 
centuries. 

However,  such  blemishes  in  style  ought  not  to  hinder 
us  from  admiring  Aventin's  healthy  views  and  excellent 
appreciation  of  history.  Fables  and  falsehoods,  which  had 
been  hitherto  generally  accepted,  he  was  in  some  instances 
the  first  to  see  through — e.g.  the  delusion  as  to  the  female 
Pope  Joan.  He  rejected  the  fable  invented  in  Rome  of  the 
institution  of  the  college  of  prince-electors  by  Pope  Gregory 
V.,  to  which  even  his  contemporary  the  learned  Bebel  of 
Tubingen  still  firmly  adhered.  It  may  therefore  appear 
all  the  more  strange  that  he  should  introduce  into  his 
work  such  a  fantastic  picture  as  he  gives  us  of  German 
primitive  history,  including  a  mythical  period  in  which 
illustrious  rulers,  flourishing  communities,  and  the  heroes 
of  great  deeds  abounded.  The  primeval  German  King- 
dom existed  fully  a  thousand  years  before  the  fall  of 
Troy ;  Aventin  rejects  the  myth,  dating  from  the  seventh 
century,  of  the  descent  of  the  Franks  from  the  Trojans, 
simply  because  it  would  have  made  the  rise  of  German 
greatness  and  power  much  too  recent.  He  furnishes  us 
with  detailed  accounts  of  the  primeval  German  '  kings ' 
Schwab,  Bayer,  and  Gambrinus,  and  imagines  that  with 
further  research  many  old  sources  of  information  and 
ancient  monuments  might  be  brought  to  light  which  would 
prove  the  Germans  '  in  their  past  deeds  and  history  not  to 
have  been  outdone  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans.'  Upon 
this  point  he  often  appeals  to  the  ballads  current  amongst 
the  people  and  to  old  songs  and  poems.  It  must  be  allowed 
in  his  favour  that,  according  to  the  received  opinion  of  our 
own  day,  the  old  heroic  legends  originated  amongst  the 
ancestors  of  the  Bavarian  people.  But  as  he  also  quotes 
the  Meisterlieder  of  the  fifteenth  century  as  his  authorities 


150  AVENTIN   AND   HIS   TIMES  vi 

he  may  have  borrowed  a  good  deal  out  of  these  now  for- 
gotten rhymes.  The  principal  source,  however,  upon  which 
he  draws  for  this  mythical  history  is  the  false  Berosus  of 
the  Dominican  Annius  of  Yiterbo.  Twenty  years  before, 
Nauclerus  or  Vergenhans  of  Wurtemberg  had  made 
this  Annius  the  basis  of  primitive  German  history  in  his 
chronicle  which  was  afterwards  revised  by  Melancthon ;  but 
that  Aventin,  otherwise  so  clear-sighted,  should  have  never- 
theless failed  to  recognise  imposture  in  this  instance 
can  only  be  explained  by  his  patriotic  blindness  and  his 
desire  to  set  before  the  world  a  genealogical  tree  which 
should  carry  the  origin  of  the  German  race  far  back  into  the 
brilliant  but  undefined  ages  of  the  primitive  world.  He 
allows  himself  also  to  be  duped  by  a  pretended  Chancellor 
and  Secretary  of  Duke  Thassilo  named  Kranz.  The 
Bavarian  chroniclers  shortly  before  and  in  Aventin's  time 
had  made  out  a  plausible  list  of  the  mythical  kings.  With- 
out considering  the  genuine  German  nationality  of  the 
Bavarian  people,  Aventin,  for  the  sake  of  giving  them  a 
more  remote  origin,  turns  the  Celtic  Boii  into  Germans,  and 
makes  them  into  the  ancestors  of  the  later  Bajuvarians. 
This  leads  him  to  maintain  that  all  the  Celts  who  had 
lived  in  times  of  yore  upon  German  soil  and  on  the  borders, 
were  of  true  German  stock,  that  is,  German  by  descent, 
language,  customs,  and  laws  ;  even  the  Celtic  Galatians  of 
Asia  Minor  were  in  his  eyes  German,  or  rather  Bavarian, 
so  that  according  to  this  view  St.  Paul  had  addressed  his 
epistle  to  the  Germans,  and  the  Galatian  bishops  who 
had  appeared  at  the  Councils  of  the  fourth  century  were 
German  bishops.  Even  the  Sarmatians,  Getse,  and  Thra- 
cians  are  said  by  Aventin  to  have  been  Germans.  This 
resembles  the  transposition  with  a  contrary  aim,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Ehine,  of  the  terms  Franks  and  French, 
first  made  current  in  Germany  by  the  Chronicler  of  Stras- 
burg,  Fritzsche  Closener,  who  adds  the  Carlovingians  to  his 
list  of  the  Roman  and  Byzantine  Emperors,  with  the 
observation  that  the  empire  passed  to  the  French. 


vi  AVENTIN  AND   HIS  TIMES  151 

Now  this  and  everything  else  which  appears  strange  to 
us  in  Aventin's  writings  must  be  attributed  to  the  views 
which  he  entertained  of  the  double  ruin,  political  and 
moral,  into  which  the  German  nation  had  fallen.  He  and 
other  humanists  regarded  with  anxiety  the  rapidity  with 
which  the  power  of  France  had  lately  been  increased  and 
her  monarchy  consolidated.  They  saw  the  weakness  and 
defenceless  condition  of  the  western  frontier  of  the  empire, 
the  greater  portion  of  which  was  under  the  rule  of  the 
spiritual  princes.  Supposing,  too— and  in  those  times  it 
seemed  far  from  improbable — that  her  two  hereditary  foes, 
the  French  and  Ottoman  powers,  were  to  join  hands  for  a 
simultaneous  advance  upon  Germany,  who  could  then  avert 
the  ruin  of  the  empire  ? 

Even  in  his  preface  Aventin  reminds  his  readers  that 
each  war  which  had  as  yet  broken  out  between  Christians 
and  Turks  had  terminated  unfavourably  to  the  former; 
and  for  this  the  crimes  and  impiety  of  the  princes  and 
their  followers,  as  well  as  of  the  clergy,  that  is  to  say  the 
two  ruling  classes,  were  to  blame. 

In  1519  the  danger  that  the  German  crown  should  fall 
into  the  possession  of  France  was  imminent.  Aventin 
knew  of  but  two  means  of  averting  it.  The  first  was  that 
Germany  should  be  renovated  religiously  as  well  as  morally, 
that  the  church  should  be  reformed,  and  the  clergy,  who, 
according  to  Aventin,  had  poisoned  the  morals  of  the  people 
and  were  chiefly  answerable  for  the  prevalence  of  vice,  should 
be  made  to  amend  themselves,  or  somehow  be  rendered  in- 
nocuous. The  second  alternative,  which,  however,  presup- 
posed the  first,  appeared  to  him  to  lie  in  the  political  elevation 
of  the  Germans,  only  to  be  attained  on  condition  of  their  being 
brought  to  a  consciousness  of  the  latent  power  within  them, 
and  to  a  recollection  of  their  former  national  greatness,  such 
as  would  inspire  them  to  set  about  and  carry  through  a  reform 
of  the  constitution  of  the  empire.  Whoever  would  compre- 
hend Aventin  must  often  read  between  the  lines,  and  study  con- 
temporaneous writings,  especially  those  of  Eberlin  and  Ulrica 


152  AVENTIN  AND  HIS  TIMES  vi 

von  Hutten.  In  fervent  patriotism  Aventin  stood  not  a 
whit  behind  the  Franciscan  knight,  but  he  was  not,  like 
him,  a  restless  adventurer,  and  less  given  to  exaggerated 
rhetoric. 

Aventin,  like  Hutten  and  the  rest  of  the  humanists, 
was  always  zealous  for  the  maintenance  of  the  national 
honour,  which,  owing  at  that  time  to  the  relations  with 
France,  Italy,  and  more  recently  with  Spain,  was  pecu- 
liarly sensitive.  The  discrepancy  between  the  vast  pre- 
tensions of  an  imperium  mundi  and  the  actual  resources  of 
an  empire  with  neither  revenues,  landed  possessions,  nor 
military  power,  and  unable  even  to  put  down  the  highway 
robbery  systematically  carried  on  in  some  parts  of  the 
country,  often  drew  down  the  contempt  of  the  neighbouring 
nations  upon  the  Germans,  especially  since  the  misfortunes 
that  had  almost  invariably  attended  Maximilian's  under- 
takings, and  since  German  weakness  had  been  exposed  by 
the  result  of  the  Swiss  war. 

All  the  more  zealously  did  writers  endeavour  to  repre- 
sent the  former  dignity  and  splendour  of  the  nation  in 
glowing  colours,  to  magnify  the  number  of  its  victorious 
campaigns  and  its  superiority  over  the  most  renowned  and 
powerful  nations  of  antiquity ;  and,  as  the  limits  of  his- 
torical time  appeared  insufficient,  a  period  of  fabulous 
antiquity  was  added.  Thus  fictions,  such  as  shortly  before 
Aventin's  time  the  Abbot  Trithemius  had  invented  about 
Hunibald  and  his  fabulous  primitive  history  of  the  Franks, 
were  not  repudiated,  and  were  treated  as  harmless. 

The  great  and  excellent  work  of  Dlugoss,  a  history  of 
Poland,  written  forty  years  before  Aventin,  largely  par- 
takes of  the  merits  and  defects  of  Aventin's  work.  Dlugoss 
also  had  put  together  with  marvellous  industry  all  that  he 
had  managed  to  collect  out  of  the  chronicles  and  records 
of  libraries  and  archives.  With  equal  conscientiousness 
he  too,  like  Aventin,  was  bent  upon  setting  before  his 
countrymen  a  glowing  picture  of  their  past,  filled  with 
heroic  figures  and  deeds,  and  was  skilful  in  weaving 


vi  AVENTIN   AND   HIS   TIME8 

together  a  consecutive  but  idealised  history  out  of  the  frag- 
ments of  popular  ballads.  The  object  of  his  work  is  to 
prove  that  the  countries  which  had  become  in  course  of 
time  estranged  from  the  Polish  crown  and  people,  including 
a  considerable  part  of  Germany,  would  some  day  be  re- 
united to  Poland.3 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  1531,  three  years  therefore 
before  Aventin's  death,  a  work  upon  the  commencement  of 
German  history  appeared  in  the  three  volumes  by  Beatus 
Bhenanus  of  Elsass,  in  which  the  weak  and  untrustworthy 
portions  of  Aventin's  works — as  to  the  false  Berosus  and 
the  transformation  of  Celts  and  Gauls  into  Germans— are 
picked  out  for  scathing  criticism  and  fundamentally  dis- 
proved. Germany,  remarks  Ehenanus,  has  military  fame 
enough  of  her  own,  and  can  leave  the  French  theirs. 

It  must  be  understood  that  in  this  he  was  not  aiming 
at  Aventin,  whose  writings  could  not  have  been  known 
to  him,  but  at  the  precursors  of  Aventin  :  the  credulous 
Wimpfeling,  who  sought  to  raise  a  temple  of  fame  for 
Germany  out  of  the  fables  and  exaggerations  which  his 
patriotic  enthusiasm  led  him  to  adopt ;  Konrad  Peutinger 
of  Augsburg,  the  friend  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  who, 
only  for  the  sake  of  proving  that  the  Franks  had  never 
ruled  over  the  Germans,  would  not  reject  the  wonders  of 
Berosus;  and  Heinrich  Bebel  of  Swabia,  whose  patriotism 
rose  to  the  point  of  inducing  him  to  assert  that  the  German 
crusades  were  undertaken  solely  for  the  sake  of  God  and  the 
faith,  and  for  the  spread  of  Christianity.  Unfortunately 
we  are  ignorant  whether  Aventin  saw  the  work  of  Ehenanus, 
and,  if  he  did  so,  whether  he  was  hindered  from  making 
use  of  it  by  sickness,  by  the  failure  of  his  faculties,  or  by 
the  dislike  of  sacrificing  a  considerable  portion  of  his  own 
work. 

The  keynote  of  Aventin's  work  is  to  be  found  in  the 
maxim  that  the  freedom  or  servitude,  greatness  or  degrada- 
tion, happiness  or  tribulation,  of  the  German  people  depend 

3  Geissberg,  Die  polnischc  Geschichtsschreibung,  p.  331. 


154  AVENTIN  AND   HIS  TIMES  vi 

upon  their  moral  worth.  They  have  always  fared  accord- 
ing to  their  deserts,  and  prospered  in  proportion  as  they 
possessed  the  virtues  of  temperance,  truth,  and  justice. 
Formerly,  he  thinks,  when  national  life  was  simpler  and 
purer,  God  suffered  the  Germans  from  time  to  time  to  be 
chastised  by  foreign  foes ;  but  for  the  last  400  years  judg- 
ments had  come  upon  them  through  internal  discord  and 
the  covetousness  of  their  princes.  This  opinion,  viz.  that 
the  dissensions  of  the  princes  and  the  want  of  a  strong 
imperial  government  are  the  cruellest  scourge  upon  the 
backs  of  the  people,  was  the  spoken  or  tacit  opinion  of 
every  German  of  average  cultivation.  Aventin  was  so 
penetrated  with  it,  that  in  the  preface  to  his  '  Chronicle ' 
he  expressly  points  out,  as  the  task  of  the  historian,  the 
exposition  of  the  true  causes  which  lead  to  unity  or  discord 
between  the  different  classes  and  estates  in  the  country. 
Seeing  that  he  himself  was  convinced  that  the  dissensions 
at  imperial  elections,  the  civil  wars,  the  insubordination 
of  the  princes  to  the  emperor,  had  been  always  incited 
or  fostered  by  the  popes,  and  that  it  was  the  latter  who 
still  were  perpetually  spreading  confusion  and  discord 
in  Germany,  it  is  not  surprising  that,  religious  motives 
apart,  his  works  should  have  received  so  anti-Eoman  a 
colouring. 

Aventin  evidently  bestows  especial  care  and  attention 
upon  the  history  of  Henry  IV.,  Henry  V.,  Frederick  II., 
and  of  Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  for  the  very  reason  that  they 
mark  the  period  of  the  great  struggle  of  the  emperors  with 
the  papacy.  Like  Cato  he  takes  the  beaten  side,  that  of 
the  Germans  and  their  emperor  ;  and  not  only  this,  it  is 
clear  also,  in  spite  of  all  the  prudence  and  reticence  which 
he  observes,  that  he  sees  in  the  popes  the  most  dangerous 
and  irreconcilable  enemies  of  the  empire  and  of  the  German 
nation.  Since  the  death  of  Frederick  II.,  says  Aventin, 
the  German  nation  has  accomplished  nothing  really  great  or 
noble.  When  he  characterises  the  struggle  of  the  popes  with 
the  last  emperor  of  the  house  of  Hohenstaufen  as  a  war  of 


vi  AVENTIN   AND   HIS  TIMES  155 

which  the  true  motive  was  the  humiliation  of  the  German 
Kingdom,  already  over  powerful  and  over  prosperous,  later  re- 
search corroborates  his  judgment  upon  the  facts.  He  knew  at 
whose  door  the  chief  blame  rested  for  the  terrible  times  of 
imperial  interregnum,  and  what  irreparable  losses  the  Ger- 
mans had  then  undergone.  The  two  speeches  which  we 
have  already  mentioned  are  those  in  which  he  especially 
gives  vent  to  his  opinion  upon  the  papacy  and  its  behaviour 
towards  Germany.  He  recurs  again  and  again  in  many 
places  to  the  corrupting  and  ruinous  effects  of  the  influence 
of  Borne  upon  Germany.  Far  from  recognising  in  the  strife 
about  investitures  and  in  the  conduct  of  Gregory  and 
his  adherents  a  genuine  movement  of  reform,  Aventin 
totally  condemns  them,  and  we  cannot  but  acknowledge 
that  in  his  times  and  circumstances  it  was  perfectly  natural 
that  he  should  do  so.  Once  aware  that  the  rule  of  suc- 
cession in  the  empire  had  been  broken  by  papal  influence, 
and  arbitrary  election  set  up  as  a  principle  in  its  place,  as  a 
preliminary  step  towards  that  downfall  of  the  empire  which 
could  now  no  longer  be  prevented,  he  was  justly  indignant 
that  the  struggle  should  have  begun  and  be  carried  on  with 
the  cry  of  '  Down  with  the  simony  of  the  laity  ! '  when  all 
the  while  the  ultimate  result  was  the  surer  establishment 
of  that  simony  which  flourished  without  restraint  in  the 
ranks  of  the  clergy  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  Finally 
he  could  not  fail  to  perceive  that  the  rule  of  celibacy  which 
Hildebrand  and  his  successors  had  ruthlessly  forced  upon 
an  over-numerous  and  wealthy  class,  living  for  the  most 
part  in  luxurious  idleness,  had  been  conducive  to  a  shameless 
immorality  patent  to  all  the  world.  The  difference  between 
the  echo  of  the  public  opinion  of  the  time  and  the  con- 
clusions which  Aventin's  studies  had  led  him  to  must  here 
be  marked.  During  the  years  in  which  Aventin  was  com- 
posing his  work  it  is  certain  that  a  feeling  hostile  to  Home 
was  widely  diffused  amongst  all  classes,  chiefly  the  burgher 
and  learned  classes,  but  also  even  amongst  the  clergy. 
Erasmus  gives  utterance  to  it  in  1518,  and  King  Ferdinand 


156  AVENTIN   AND   PUS   TIMES  vi 

does  the  same  in  a  memorial  dedicated  to  his  brother  the 
emperor  in  1524  ;  besides  which  the  papal  legate,  Cardinal 
Cervino  (afterwards  Pope  Marcellus  II.) ,  writing  a  few 
years  after  Aventin's  death,  says  that  he  is  filled  with 
horror  at  perceiving  the  extent  to  which  the  Germans  have 
swerved  from  their  allegiance  to  the  papal  chair.4 

The  personal  impressions  which  Aventin  received  in 
Italy  must  also  be  taken  into  account ;  as  the  companion  of 
a  prince  who  himself  belonged  to  the  ecclesiastical  class, 
he  was  favourably  placed  for  gaining  a  deeper  insight  into 
the  condition  of  things  in  that  country.  That  which  the 
very  names  of  the  popes  from  Paul  II.  to  Clement  VII. 
suggest  to  us,  Aventin  saw  and  understood  from  observa- 
tion on  the  spot.  In  Paris  again  he  had  the  opportunity 
of  acquainting  himself  with  the  views  of  the  French  upon 
the  papal  court,  and  the  nature  of  them  it  is  easy  to  dis- 
cover from  the  utterances  of  one  witness  only — Bishop 
Duchatel  of  Orleans.5 

Now  and  then  Aventin's  aversion  to  the  papacy  leads 
him  into  unfair  statements,  for  instance  when,  not  in  the 
*  Annals '  as  some  one  has  foolishly  supposed,  but  in  the  later 
'Chronicle,'  he  charges  the  papal  party  with  the  murder  of 
Duke  Ludwig  of  Kelheim  in  1231,  a  crime  which,  judging 
from  the  relations  of  the  duke  to  the  pope  and  the  emperor 
at  the  time,  it  is  impossible  to  believe  in. 

Our  opinion  on  the  subject,  however,  is  somewhat 
modified  by  the  reflection  that  Aventin,  and  indeed  he 
only,  had  read  and  made  extracts  from  the  memorandum 
book  of  Albert  of  Possemiinster,  and  had  taken  his  impres- 
sion from  that,  for,  in  a  note  amongst  the  papers  that  he 
left  at  his  death,  he  remarks,  '  It  grieves  me  to  read  what 

4  Relatio  legationis  Cardinalis  de  Nicustro,  in  the  Anecdota  Litteraria, 
Komae,  1773,  i.  143  ff.     The  popes,  says  Cervino,  formerly  made  use  of  the 
people  to  extort  obedience  from  the  princes,  but  the  mass  of  the  nation  has 
now  become  hostile  to  Home,  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  right-minded 
individuals,  the  minority,  who  outwardly  stand  firm,  are  only  kept  so  by  the 
fear  of  their  princes.     This  was  the  condition  of  affairs  in  1540. 

5  Petri  Castellani  Vita,  auctore  Petro  Gallandio,  ed.  Baluzius,  Paris 
1674,  pp.  67,  88,  89. 


vi  AVENTIN   AND   HIS   TIMES  15 

these  foxes  and  ravening  beasts  were  not  afraid  to  accom- 
plish.' 

Aventin  dimly  foreboded  much  more  than  he  clearly 
perceived.  He  inevitably  overlooked  many  essential  items 
in  the  process  by  which  abuses  had  grown  up  in  the  church, 
for  many  facts  belonging  to  it  were  as  yet  unknown,  and 
most  of  the  sources  from  which  we  now  draw  our  knowledge 
of  these  things  were  then  closed.  Touching  the  revolution 
which  had  begun  in  the  church  under  Hildebrand,  he  says 
that  Christian  modesty  forbade  him  to  reveal  the  forgeries 
upon  which  it  had  been  founded.  This  observation  could 
not  be  meant  to  refer  to  the  Isidorean  Decretals,  for  their 
spuriousness  had  not  been  brought  to  light  in  his  time, 
but  was  more  likely  occasioned  by  certain  assertions  con- 
tained in  the  letters  of  Gregory  VII.  and  in  the  writings  of 
the  Gregorians,  concerning  the  falsity  of  which  his  ac- 
quaintance with  older  documents  and  his  critical  insight 
would  have  convinced  him.  That  the  old  order  of  the 
church  should  be  superseded  by  a  new  creation  of  cun- 
ning and  fallacious  canon  law,  and  that  the  system 
now  become  dominant  was  bound  up  with  a  concatena- 
tion of  inventions  and  forgeries  reaching  over  a  thousand 
years,  were  matters  of  which  he  proves  himself,  by  various 
isolated  utterances,  to  have  been  dimly  conscious,  without 
being  able,  however,  to  grasp  the  true  connection  of  facts. 
Of  Gratian's  Decretal,  a  work  which  partly  effected  and 
partly  confirmed  the  complete  transformation  of  the  church 
to  an  absolute  monarchy,  he  certainly  says  that  it  *  reduced ' 
the  canon  law  '  to  a  tangle  of  shreds ' — an  expression  fall- 
ing very  far  short  of  the  truth.  Finally,  when  he  asserts 
that  the  example  of  Charles  IV.  in  purchasing  the  imperial 
dignity  from  the  electoral  princes,  for  himself  first  and 
then  for  his  son  Wenceslaus,  was  very  evil  and  quite  unpre- 
cedented, he  could  not  have  been  aware  that  the  venality 
of  the  electors  had  regulated  the  elections  ever  since  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

Aventin  has  been  severely  blamed  by  one  of  his  bio- 


158  AVENTIN  AND  HIS   TIMES  vi 

graphers  for  the  bitterness  of  his  expressions  against  the 
clergy.  He  has  been  accused  of  vindictiveness  and  blind 
anger,  and  even  of  malice  and  falsehood.6  It  is  true  that  he 
not  seldom  breaks  out  into  bitter  expressions,  and  chooses 
the  strongest  terms  which  language  can  afford  him.  He 
calls  the  princes,  for  example,  in  one  place  selfish  money- 
grabbers,  intent  only  upon  hunting  and  gambling.  But  his 
utterances  with  regard  to  the  clergy  are  not  more  severe 
than  are  those  of  most  of  his  contemporaries  both  in  and 
out  of  Germany,  and  every  word  is  corroborated  a  hundred 
times  over  by  the  testimony  of  other  writers  of  the  period. 
The  identical  accusations  raised  by  Aventin  against  the 
clergy,  now  in  jest  and  scorn,  now  in  anger  and  indignation, 
were  then  universally  brought  against  them.  He  only 
clothes  them  in  terms  grown,  as  he  assures  us,  proverbial 
in  the  mouth  of  the  people.  Above  all,  Aventin's  descrip- 
tions receive  abundant  justification  from  members  of  that 
class  itself,  especially  the  clergy  of  Bavaria.  The  German 
language,  too,  it  must  be  observed,  was  extraordinarily  rich 
at  that  period  in  terms  of  satire  and  invective,  manifestly 
because  the  tendency  of  the  day  lay  in  that  direction. 
The  writings  of  Sebastian  Brant,  Geiler  of  Kaisersberg, 
Pauli,  Hutten,  and  Eberlin  testify  to  this. 

Aventin  was  by  no  means  alone  in  the  opinion,  to  which 
he  now  and  then  gives  energetic  expression,  that  the  Papal 
Curia  was  chiefly  answerable  for  the  miserable  condition  of 
the  church  and  for  the  corruption  of  the  clergy.  Just  at 
the  moment  when  he  was  composing  the  last  book  of  the 

*  Annals,'  Pope  Hadrian  VI.  had  publicly  confessed  to  the 
Germans  that  the  corruption  of  the  church  had  been  prin- 
cipally brought  about  by  the  papal  chair.     His  neighbour, 
Bishop  Berthold,  of   Chiemsee,  the    author  of   the    book 

*  The  Burden  of  the  Church ' — Die  Last  der  Kirche — and 
Aytinger,  the  priest  of  Augsburg,  in  1496,  give  the  same 
testimony.     There  was  not  to  be  found  at  that  time,  even 
amongst  the  most  zealous  partisans  of  the  church,  a  single 

6  Wieclcmann,  p.  192. 


vi  AVENTIN  AND  HIS  TIMES  159 

voice  of  any  weight  which  would  have  questioned  the 
notorious  fact  that  Borne  itself  was  the  head-quarters 
of  all  abuses  and  religious  corruption.  What  most  con- 
tributed to  embitter  public  opinion  and  to  kindle  the 
longing  for  the  reformation  of  ecclesiastical  institutions, 
was  that  whilst  the  Koman  Church  still  continued  to  set 
herself  forth  as  the  only  perfect  pattern  of  the  Christian 
Church,  she  was  everywhere  through  her  influence  and 
tyrannical  action  carrying  irremediable  corruption  into 
ecclesiastical  life.  Had  Aventin  lived  a  year  longer  he 
would  have  read  an  official  confirmation  of  his  charges 
against  Rome  in  the  report  drawn  up  by  the  cardinals 
whom  Paul  III.  had  commissioned  to  inquire  into  the 
matter. 

How  did  matters  stand,  then,  as  regards  Aventin's 
religious  convictions  ?  Was  he  at  heart  a  Protestant, 
or  did  he  hold  fast  to  the  old  church  ?  Any  one  who 
would  profit  by  his  works  must  form  an  opinion  upon  the 
subject. 

To  any  clear  perception  or  definite  logical  views  upon 
the  differences  between  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  doc- 
trines, Aventin  certainly  never  attained.  We  come  upon 
passages  in  his  writings  composed  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  church  of  the  middle  ages,  which  it  is  hardly  fair  to 
accept  as  mere  efforts  at  accommodation.  Thousands 
found  themselves  in  that  transition  period  in  the  same 
predicament,  uncertain  whom  or  what  to  believe ;  and 
whilst  many  made  comparatively  light  of  this  fact,  com- 
forting themselves  with  the  thought  that  the  funda- 
mental Christian  doctrines  comprised  in  the  two  oldest 
creeds  still  constituted  a  common  bond  of  faith,  others 
suffered  poignant  anxiety,  tormented  by  the  feeling  of 
having  lost  all  certainty  of  belief.  We  stumble  upon  a 
numerous  class  of  so-called  expectants,  who,  mindful  of 
the  great  reforming  council  of  the  previous  century,  are 
content  to  wait  and  live  on  in  doubt  in  the  hope,  never  to 
be  realised,  that  all  points  of  dispute  would  one  day  be 


160  AVENTIN  AND  HIS  TIMES  vi 

decided  in  a  free  council.  There  were  about  that  time  in 
Passau  two  ecclesiastics,  the  dean  of  the  cathedral,  Rupert 
of  Mosham,  and  Philonius  Dugo,  a  companion  of  the 
Bishop  of  Passau,  whose  writings  bear  a  certain  relation- 
ship to  Aventin's,  and  who  both  strove  to  take  up  a  posi- 
tion between  the  adherents  of  the  old  and  those  of  the  new 
doctrines. 

Aventin,  who  all  his  youth  had  been  a  pious  and  faith- 
ful son  of  the  church,  became,  when  in  Paris,  a  pupil  of 
the  famous  Lefevre  of  Staples,  who  introduced  him  to  the 
study  of  the  New  Testament.  Lefevre  himself  remained 
until  his  death  a  member  of  the  old  church,  but  several  of 
the  reformers  were  disciples  of  his  school.  In  Germany 
Aventin  reckoned  amongst  his  friends  several  leaders  of  the 
Reformation,  such  as  Urban  Rhegius,  Althamer,  Spalatin, 
Osiander,  and  he  himself  inclined  more  and  more  towards 
the  doctrines  proclaimed  in  Wittenberg,  upon  which  side  the 
majority  of  the  thinking  and  educated  people  of  the  day 
amongst  the  laity  also  stood.  The  mainspring  of  the 
movement,  in  point  of  fact,  was  in  the  inner  life  and  con- 
sciousness of  the  German  people.  Thus  it  came  to  pass 
that  with  irresistible  power  it  turned  all  existing  forces  in 
Germany  at  once  into  its  service,  availing  itself  of  all  the 
learning  and  intellectual  resources  of  the  country  for  the 
one  great  task  of  church  reform — a  circumstance  that 
in  course  of  time  led  to  a  too  exclusive  predominance  of 
theology  and  an  unhealthy  preponderance  of  dogmatic 
questions.  Aventin  himself  points  out  the  influence  which 
his  historical  studies  exercised  upon  his  religious  convic- 
tions ;  in  the  animated  descriptions  that  he  gives  of  the 
advantages  to  be  gained  from  the  study  of  history  he 
reckons  '  the  restoration  of  faith  to  the  unbeliever,'  because 
those  who  have  been  led  astray  by  the  caricature  of  Chris- 
tianity presented  before  their  eyes  by  the  present  state  of 
religion  and  of  the  church,  will,  when  they  see  what  the 
noble  primitive  form  of  the  church  was  during  the  first 
centuries,  perceive  their  present  stumbling-blocks  to  be 


vi  AVENTIN  AND   HIS  TIMES  161 

only  the  result  of  later  corruptions.  Throughout  his 
'  Chronicle  '  he  is  evidently  taking  pains  to  make  manifest 
and  glaring  the  contrast  between  the  customs  and  ordinances 
of  the  primitive  church,  and  the  conditions  and  abuses  of 
recent  times. 

But  this  he  could  not  do  without  danger.  Not  later 
than  1523  the  pope  had  commended  Duke  William  of 
Bavaria  greatly,  and  thought  fit  to  confer  various  privileges 
upon  him,  for  his  zeal  in  the  extirpation  of  the  new  doc- 
trines, even  by  means  of  capital  punishment.  Not  long 
afterwards,  when  the  teaching  of  the  Anabaptists  had 
spread  with  astonishing  rapidity  throughout  the  whole  of 
Southern  Germany  so  that  the  people  of  both  the  country 
and  the  towns  were  converted  in  crowds,  the  same  Duke 
William  issued  the  terrible  mandate  that  '  whoever  recanted 
should  be  beheaded  ;  whoever  did  not  recant  should  be 
burnt,'  and  the  thing  was  done.  Aventin  was  thrown 
into  prison,7  *  for  the  gospel's  sake,'  as  he  says  himself ;  but 
was  shortly  afterwards  liberated  by  his  protector,  the 
Chancellor  Eck.  In  1529  he  applied  to  Melancthon  to 
find  him,  if  possible,  some  situation  in  Wittenberg;  but 
the  application  was  rejected.  If  this  migration  to  Saxony 
had  taken  place  we  may  be  sure  that  much  would  have 
appeared  in  Aventin' s  works  which  is  not  to  be  found 
there,  and  much  more  which  is  merely  hinted  at,  or  in- 
sinuated, would  have  been  stated  plainly.  He  has  avoided, 
for  instance,  any  expression  of  opinion  upon  Huss  and 
Jerome  of  Prague,  although  in  a  later  passage  he  reports 
the  burning  at  the  stake  of  two  German  priests,  Batgeb 
and  Griinsleder,  in  Eatisbon,  for  their  Hussite  teaching,  but 
puts  his  own  opinion  into  their  mouth,  viz.  that  the  two 
Bohemian  theologians  suffered  death  in  Constance  not  on 
account  of  real  errors,  but  because  of  their  denunciations  of 
the  corruption  of  the  church.  So  also  as  to  the  question  on 
which  the  existence  of  the  papacy  depends  he  discusses  the 

7  Letter  to  Dr.  Eck  in  Home.     See  Wiedemann's  Joh.  Eckt  s.  666. 

M 


162  AVENTIN   AND   HIS   TIMES  vi 

pros  and  cons  as  to  whether  St.  Peter  was  ever  in  Eome,  with 
knowledge  of  the  subject,  but  he  shirks  disclosing  his  own 
view  with  the  hypocritical  words  '  I  will  wrangle  with  no 
man  upon  this  point — it  is  all  one  to  me.'  Thus  his  last 
years  were  passed  in  Bavaria  in  prudent  obscurity.  In 
his  writings  he  has  avoided  any  mention  of  the  names  of 
Luther,  Melancthon,  and  other  reformers,  even  of  Hutten ; 
Erasmus  alone  he  singles  out  to  exalt  him  as  one  of  the 
greatest  benefactors  of  Christianity.  With  Erasmus,  in 
fact,  he  has  much  in  common,  sharing  his  opinions 
possibly  upon  most  questions.  Any  suspicion  that  the 
Keformation  would  lead  to  a  complete  and  permanent 
separation  into  two  hostile  churches  doubtless  never 
entered  his  head.  At  the  time  of  his  death,  and  for  some 
time  afterwards,  this  thought  was,  even  to  the  heads 
and  leaders  of  the  movement,  strange  and  scarcely  con- 
ceivable, as  one  sees  by  the  utterances  of  Melancthon  and 
Camerarius.  Like  most  of  his  contemporaries,  he  carried 
with  him  to  the  grave  the  hope  that  the  Eeformation  would 
be  general,  a,nd  his  beloved  Germany  be  spared  the  mis- 
fortune of  a  lasting  schism.  Things  have  turned  out 
otherwise.  Least  of  all  could  he  have  foreseen  the  destiny 
of  his  more  immediate  fatherland,  Bavaria. 

In  Aventin's  day  Bavaria  was  intellectually  on  a  par 
with  the  rest  of  Germany.  After  his  death,  persecution 
drove  the  men  who  were  his  equals  in  education  and 
thought  out  of  the  country,  or  forced  them  to  keep  silence ; 
and  after  1550  Bavaria  for  two  centuries  ceased  to  take 
her  part  in  the  life  and  aspirations  of  the  German 
people. 

Aventin's  two  principal  works  have  been  imperfectly 
preserved  to  us  in  two  partially  incorrect  editions.  Even 
in  the  Gundling  edition  several  passages  are  missing. 
The  case  is  still  more  unfortunate  with  the  '  Chronicle,' 
which  is  such  a  remarkable  monument  of  the  language. 
The  full  value  of  Aventin's  work  and  its  importance  in  our 


vi  AVENTIN  AND  HIS  TIMES  163 

literature,  together  with  the  services  which  he  rendered  to 
the  language  and  history  of  Germany,  will  never  be  recog- 
nised until  we  have  before  us  a  correct  edition  of  the 
'  Chronicle  '  from  the  original  manuscript.  It  is  a  point  of 
honour  for  Bavaria  that  a  good  edition  should  be  produced, 
and  it  is  with  much  satisfaction  that  I  can  state  that  the 
Academy  has  already  taken  the  matter  in  hand  by  the 
appointment  of  a  committee  to  prepare  the  work.8 

8  The  new  edition,  prepared  by  the  Eoyal  Academy  of  Munich,  has  since 
appeared  in  5  vols.    (Christian  Kaiser,  Munich,  1881-86). 


164  INFLUENCE  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE  AND  CULTURE   vn 


VII 

ON  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE  AND 
CULTURE  UPON  THE  WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE 
MIDDLE  AGES1 

THE  culture  and  literature  of  Eome,  which,  together 
with  Christianity,  have  served  as  the  means  of  education 
for  modern  nations,  had  their  origin  in  the  far  richer 
civilisation  of  Greece.  It  is  well  known  that  from  the  sixth 
century  after  the  building  of  the  city,  Greek  men  and 
Greek  books  in  rapidly  increasing  numbers  flowed  into 
Kome,  which  was  enlarging  itself  to  become  the  metropolis 
of  the  world.  Numerous  Greek  slaves  and  freedmen 
spread  the  knowledge  of  their  tongue  as  well  as  of  their 
literature  amongst  the  households  and  families  of  Kome. 
Eoman  students  began  to  undertake  the  journey  to  Greece 
for  the  sake  of  visiting  the  famous  Hellenic  centres  of 
education.  To  this  may  be  added  the  influence  of  trade, 
and  of  diplomatic  exigencies  in  the  intercourse  with  the 
countries  and  courts  of  the  East. 

In  the  Augustan  period  of  Home's  intellectual  bloom  it 
was  the  recognised  rule  that  in  all  the  kinds  of  literature 
adopted  by  the  Eomans,  Greek  forms  and  models  should 
be  studied  and  imitated.  The  noble  language  of  Kome 
only  attained  to  perfection  through  the  formative  and  en- 
riching influence  of  the  Greek  tongue.  Early  in  the  period 

1  Address  delivered  in  the  new  hall  upon  the  celebration  of  the  128th 
anniversary  of  the  foundation  of  the  Academy  of  Munich.  The  introduc- 
tory congratulatory  phrases  have  been  omitted.  This  and  the  following  five 
addresses  have  already  appeared  in  a  more  or  less  complete  form  in  the 
Allger.ieine  Zeitung. 


viz  UPON  THE  WESTERN  WORLD  IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES   165 

of  the  empire  the  old  hatred  and  antagonism  against 
foreign  speech  and  literature  had  given  way  to  general 
admiration,  to  enthusiastic  appropriation,  and  imitation 
faithful  but  often  far  too  servile.  The  anxiety  lest  the 
genuine  ancient  Koman  character  in  morals  and  politics 
should  thereby  be  disintegrated  and  given  over  to  irre- 
trievable dissolution  had  not  yet  disappeared,  but  was 
powerless  to  resist  the  increasing  force  of  the  new  current. 
The  entire  education  and  culture  of  the  Eoman  youth  was 
Greek.  No  education  was  considered  complete  which  did 
not  include  a  smattering,  if  not  a  knowledge,  of  Greek 
literature.  In  an  empire  where  Greek  was  the  language  of 
the  majority,  ignorance  of  it  implied  inability  to  fill  any 
office  or  to  carry  on  any  business. 

From  the  time  of  Alexander's  conquest,  Greek  had 
become  a  universal  language,  or  rather,  the  language  of  the 
known  world.  Three  centuries  had  elapsed  since  universal 
history  had  entered  the  Hellenic  period.  Under  Macedonian 
rule  the  Greek  intellect  had  become  the  leading  intellectual 
power  of  the  world.  The  great  Greek-speaking  towns  of  the 
East  were  alike  the  strongholds  of  intellectual  power,  the 
battlefields  of  opinions  and  systems,  and  the  laboratories  of 
scientific  research,  where  discoveries  were  made  and  literary 
undertakings  requiring  a  combination  of  forces  were  carried 
out.  Such  was  Antioch  on  the  Orontes,  the  meeting  point 
of  Syrian  and  Greek  intellect ;  such,  above  all,  was  Alexan- 
dria. Under  the  lavish  care  of  the  Ptolemies  the  Museum, 
the  first  learned  association  resembling  a  modern  academy, 
was  formed,  with  free  access  to  the  greatest  library  of 
antiquity.  There  the  critical  study  of  language  first  came 
into  fashion,  and  care  was  taken  to  discover  the  correct  text 
of  the  classical  authors,  more  especially  of  Homer.  Anti- 
quarian research  and  general  education  were  there  first  esta- 
blished upon  a  wider  basis.  The  foundation  of  the  sciences 
was  laid,  which  to  this  day  continue  to  furnish  our  intellec- 
tual food,  and  upon  that  basis  we  continue  to  build. 
Scholars  and  students  from  every  nation  flocked  to  the  city 


166  INFLUENCE  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE  AND  CULTURE  vn 

of  splendour  and  delight,  and  all  alike  prostrated  themselves 
before  the  genius  of  Greece.  What  Paris  became  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  Alexandria  was  in  those  days. 

During  the  period  from  the  third  century  before  Christ 
to  the  close  of  the  second  century  after   Christ,  when  the 
Egyptian  capital  was  at  the  zenith  of  her  renown,  the  fame 
of  ancient  Athens  seemed  well-nigh  to  have  sunk  below  the 
horizon.  But  it  dawned  again  in  the  time  of  the  empire  under 
the  protection  of  Eoman  governors  and  patrons,  and  the 
city  continued  for  yet  five  centuries  to  be  the  chief  nursery 
of  philosophy  which  no  educated   Koman   left   un visited. 
Yet  from   the   time   of  the   fall   of  the   republic   and   in 
the  early  times  of  the  empire  the  true  centre-point  of  the 
universe,  not  only  politically  but  intellectually,  was  Eome. 
Here  lay  the  heart  of  the  great  empire,  the  centre  towards 
which  all  intellectual  energy  was  attracted  and  from  which 
again  it  flowed.     Greek  immigration   was  continually   on 
the  increase.     The  ties  which  bound  the  two  nationalities 
together    grew    ever   closer   and   stronger   till   the   whole 
became  gradually  fused  and  inseparable.     It  was  a  contest, 
an  intellectual  struggle,  from  which  the  Greeks  issued  vic- 
torious, but  in  such  wise  that  the  vanquished  themselves 
rejoiced  ungrudgingly  over  the  issue.     For  the  gain  was 
mutual ;  the  Greeks  could  not  help  admiring,  as  Polybius 
did,  the  vigorous  union  of  the  universal  empire,  contrasted 
with  the  political  incapacity  and  anarchy  of  their  former 
small  republics ;  nor  could  the  Komans  fail  to  acknowledge 
that  the  empire,  composed  of  an  agglomeration  of  different 
nationalities  united  only  through  conquest,  was  in  need  of 
a  soul,  a  common  intellectual  life,  to  animate  and  complete 
it.     For  this  neither  was  their  own  language  suitable  nor 
did  their  literature  suffice,  but  it  was  a  need  which  the  culture 
of  Greece,  now  universally  diffused,  was  alone  able  to  supply. 
In  Eome  itself,  far  from  resembling  the  Jews  in  national 
exclusiveness  or  in  the  tenacity  of  the  ties  which  only  drew 
them  more  strongly  together  in  exile,  the  Greeks  were  soon 
to  be  found  filling  every  situation  in  life.     Active,  clever, 


vii   UPON  THE   WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES    167 

and  versatile  they  well  understood  how  to  make  themselves 
useful  and  indispensable.     Greek  slaves  abounded  in  the 
Eoman  households,   and   if    educated    fetched   extraordi- 
narily high  prices.     Although  these  smooth-tongued  adven- 
turers, who,   under   the   stress  of  circumstances,    turned 
their  hands   to   any  employment,  sometimes  became  the 
laughing-stock  of  their  Eoman  masters,  Greek  influence, 
upon   the  whole,  was  beneficial.     It  was  advantageous  in 
moderating  Koman  hardness,  in  curbing  Eoman  insolence, 
and  in  giving  a  higher  tone  to  the  lives  of  the   wealthy 
upper  classes.     Intercourse  with  the  Greeks  in  Eome  in- 
evitably awakened  new  ideas  and  new  interests  which  the 
former  people  were  alone  capable  of  instilling  and  satisfying. 
An  instance  of  this  was  in  the  science  of  medicine,  which  for 
five  centuries  had  remained  unknown  in  Eome.      There 
nostrums  and  incantations  were  the  remedies  resorted  to, 
whereas    Greece  had   long   ago    possessed  the    school   of 
Hippocrates.      Celsus   was  the  first   Eoman   who,  in  the 
time  of  Tiberius,  attempted  to  write  a  treatise  upon  medi- 
cine, founded,  it  is  needless  to  say,  entirely  upon  Greek 
models. 

It  was  Greek  influence  that  first  roused  the  Eomans  to 
an  interest  in  the  primitive  history  of  their  race  and  the 
nature  and  history  of  their  own  language.  But  when 
Ennius,  the  father  of  Eoman  poetry,  whose  education  had 
been  entirely  Greek  and  his  style  formed  by  making  trans- 
lations from  the  Greek,  interwove  the  Pythagorean  and 
Stoic  doctrines  about  the  soul  of  the  universe  and  the 
daemons  into  his  great  national  work  of  the  ' Annals,'  thought- 
ful Eomans  felt  themselves  constrained  to  inquire  into 
these  systems,  notwithstanding  the  slight  attraction  which 
philosophical  speculation  possessed  for  so  practical  and 
unimaginative  a  people.  But  the  progressive  decay  of  the 
state  religion,  which  indeed  would  have  set  in  even  irrespec- 
tive of  any  contact  with  philosophy,  left  the  Eomans  no 
choice  in  the  matter.  If  the  system  of  the  Stoics  could  give 
them  compensation  and  be  a  moral  support  in  life,  they 


168    INFLUENCE   OF  GREEK   LITERATURE  AND   CULTURE     vn 

must  familiarise  themselves  with  the  physical  side  of  the 
doctrine,  even  though,  as  it  often  turned  out,  they  were 
sceptically  to  thrust  it  aside  in  the  end.  Thus  all  the  philo- 
sophical schools  had  their  representatives  in  the  city.  Soon 
even  the  emperors  were  imbued  with  Greek  philosophy. 
Hadrian  himself,  who,  by  wearing  a  beard,  affected  the 
outward  appearance  of  a  philosopher,  sought  to  embody  in 
the  practice  of  his  life  the  views  which  his  contemporary 
Plutarch  had  unfolded  in  theory ;  namely,  to  set  up  the 
Platonic  monotheism  as  a  higher  knowledge  and  a  purifying 
principle  by  the  side  of  the  popular  religions ;  while  these 
were  to  be  preserved  and  reconciled,  their  short-comings 
supplied,  and  their  differences,  in  part  at  all  events,  ad- 
justed, and  finally  to  be  welded  into  a  whole. 

But  the  rightful  heiress  of  the  truths  preserved  in  these 
religious  yearnings  had  already  been  born,  and,  however 
lowly  and  little  accounted  of  hitherto,  was  already  fully 
equipped  to  fulfil  her  destiny  as  a  ruling  power  in  the 
world. 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  had  in  view  only  the  old  class- 
ical speech  and  literature  of  Greece.  But  in  the  second 
century  before  Christ  a  new  element  had  arisen  which 
shortly  became  of  immeasurable  importance,  and  more 
potent  year  by  year  to  influence  the  course  of  history. 

The  Jews,  partly  through  their  political  reverses,  partly 
through  their  commercial  spirit  and  the  desire  to  quit  their 
own  narrow  boundaries,  which  no  longer  sufficed  for  the 
numbers  of  the  population,  spread  themselves  over  the 
whole  Eoman  as  well  as  over  the  Parthian  Empire.  They 
soon  became  settled  in  their  new  homes  and  readily  adopted 
the  universal  language,  which  had  by  that  time  made  its  way 
triumphantly  even  as  far  as  Bactria  and  the  borders  of  the 
Indus.  Compared  with  the  scanty,  awkward,  Syro-Chaldaic 
dialect  of  Palestine,  the  rich  refined  idioms  of  Greece  were 
the  most  perfect  instruments  of  thought  which  the  human 
mind  had  ever  forged  for  itself.  Out  of  this  a  Greco- Jewish 
literature  was  now  formed,  peculiar  in  itself  and  somewhat 


vii   UPON  THE   WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   169 

obscure  in  origin.  Its  head-quarters  were  in  Alexandria,  but 
its  works  were  spread  as  widely  as  the  language  of  Greece 
was  spoken.  The  object  of  its  professors  was  to  magnify 
the  Jewish  religion,  to  propagate  its  doctrines,  and  to  aid  in 
implanting  and  promoting  the  continual  growth  of  mono- 
theism. The  Alexandrian  translation  of  the  Old  Testament ; 
the  writings  of  the  Neo-Platonist  Jew  Philo ;  the  books  of 
the  New  Testament — these  three  volumes,  closely  related  to 
each  other,  form  the  foundation  of  this  Hellenistic  literature. 
Every  Jew  considered  it  his  vocation  to  be  a  light  to  the 
Gentiles  and  to  denounce  the  heathen  manners  and  customs 
which  he  abhorred.  This  was  the  origin  of  a  peculiar 
species  of  anonymous  compositions  and  fragmentary  writ- 
ings of  which  the  authorship  was  falsely  ascribed  to  the 
most  famous  Greek  poets,  and  occasionally  even  to  the 
Koman  prophetesses,  the  sibyls.  Their  purport  was  to 
proclaim  the  unity  of  God,  the  nullity  of  idolatry,  and 
approaching  judgment. 

Forgeries  and  interpolations  of  this  kind  excited  no 
scruples  of  conscience  in  those  days ;  men  were  satisfied 
with  their  own  good  motives,  believing  that  the  end  justified 
the  means.  The  Neo-Pythagoreans  did  ohe  same — witness, 
amongst  others,  the  Orphic  poems. 

The  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  on  their  side  were  power- 
fully influenced  by  the  religious  and  philosophical  move- 
ments of  the  times ;  they  aspired  to  partake  in  the  uni- 
versal citizenship,  superseding  national  limitations,  taught 
by  the  thinkers  of  Greece.  To  this  end  they  did  not 
hesitate  to  affirm  the  Mosaic  law  to  be  the  source  of  all 
the  religious  and  moral  truth  comprised  in  the  Greek 
systems ;  Pythagoras,  Plato,  and  other  wise  men  had  drawn 
inspiration  for  their  best  thoughts  from  the  books  of  the 
Jewish  religion.  The  fact  that  many  proselytes  were  at- 
tracted to  them  from  heathenism  fortified  them  in  the 
endeavour  to  induce  the  educated  classes  to  join  them  by 
adorning  and  enriching  the  Mosaic  teaching  with  the  results 
of  Greek  speculation.  They  themselves  were  willing  to 


170    INFLUENCE   OF   GREEK  LITERATURE   AND   CULTURE    vn 

acknowledge  that  the  Greek  thinkers  had  developed  a  wealth 
of  fundamental  truth  in  the  sphere  of  morals,  which  was 
vainly  to  be  looked  for  in  their  own  religious  books. 

In  the  midst  of  this  atmosphere  Christianity  arose.  In 
the  course  of  a  few  decades,  Christian  communities  sprang  up 
in  all  the  considerable  towns  of  the  East — in  Asia  Minor, 
Greece,  Egypt — and  extended  even  to  Eome.  In  all  of 
them  the  Greek  language  prevailed.  Their  liturgies  and 
sermons,  and  their  own  early  writings,  all  were  exclu- 
sively Greek.  Even  in  Rome  this  continued  to  be  the  case 
until  far  on  in  the  third  century.  Whatever  compositions 
there  saw  the  light  were  written  in  Greek.  The  first  Latin 
composition  that  appeared  in  Rome  was  by  the  Presbyter 
Novatian  in  A.D.  250.  Yet  even  in  the  commencement  of 
the  fourth  century  the  Roman  Bishop  Sylvester  wrote  a 
polemical  treatise  against  the  Jews  in  Greek.  To  this  day 
the  Roman  Liturgy  betrays  its  Greek  origin  in  some  well- 
known  formulae. 

At  the  end  of  the  second  century  the  African  Tertullian 
first  began  to  wrestle  with  the  difficulties  of  the  Latin 
language  in  the  endeavour  to  make  it  a  vehicle  for  the 
expression  of  Christian  ideas.  In  reading  his  dogmatic 
writings  the  struggle  is  so  apparent  that  it  seems  as 
though  we  beheld  a  rider  endeavouring  to  discipline  an  un- 
broken steed.  Tertullian's  doctrine  is,  however,  still  wholly 
Greek  in  substance,  and  this  continued  to  be  the  case  in 
the  church  of  the  Latin  tongue  until  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century.  Hilary,  Ambrose,  even  Jerome,  are  essentially 
interpreters  of  Greek  philosophy  and  theology  to  the  Latin 
West.  With  Augustine  learning  begins  to  assume  a  Latin 
form,  partly  original  and  independent — partly,  I  say,  for 
even  later  compositions  are  abundantly  interwoven  with 
Greek  elements  and  materials.  Very  gradually  from  the 
writings  of  the  African  fathers  of  the  church  does  the 
specific  Latin  element  come  to  occupy  that  dominant 
position  in  Western  Christendom,  which  soon,  partly  from 
self-sufficient  indifference,  partly  from  ignorance,  so  com- 


vii   UPON  THE  WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   171 

pletely  severed  itself  from  Greek  influences  that  the  old 
unity  and  harmony  could  never  be  restored. 

Still,  the  Biblical  study  of  the  Latins  is,  as  a  whole, 
a  mere  echo  and  copy  of  Greek  predecessors.  Origen 
is  the  father  of  exegesis  in  the  West  as  well  as  in  the 
East.  The  later  Biblical  interpretation,  which  after  long 
silence  awoke  again  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries, 
and  appears  in  the  writings  of  Bede,  Khabanus,  Walafrid, 
Strabo,  and  others  after  them,  is  likewise  only  borrowed 
from  the  works  of  the  earlier  commentators,  so  that  in  the 
most  important  department  of  learned  inquiry  the  whole  of 
the  middle  ages  still  derived  intellectual  nourishment  from 
the  Greeks,  scanty  and  obscure  as  the  source  had  become. 

And  here  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  a  fact  of  immense 
historical  importance,  which  even  in  these  days  it  is  worth 
while  to  weigh  and  place  in  its  proper  light.  The  whole 
of  modern  civilisation  and  culture  is  derived  from  Greek 
sources.  Intellectually  we  are  the  offspring  of  the  union 
of  the  ancient  Greek  classics  with  Hellenised  Judaism. 
Greeks  and  Israelites :  a  sharper  contrast,  greater  mutual 
repulsion,  could  (it  appears  at  first  sight)  be  scarcely 
imagined.  Yet  similarities  of  feature  were  not  wanting. 
Both  pretended,  so  to  speak,  to  dominion  over  the  world. 
Aristotle  had  impressed  upon  his  pupil  Alexander  that  the 
Greeks  were  called  to  rule  over  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
The  hope  of  a  Messiah  led  the  Jews  to  expect  that  the  man 
would  soon  appear  who  would  lead  Israel  to  victory  over 
the  Eomans  and  to  supremacy  over  the  pagan  world.  In 
Christianity  these  pretensions  were  to  find  their  correction 
and  the  realisation  that  was  to  reconcile  them.  The  two 
nations  had  yet  another  point  in  common  in  that  the  whole 
national  character  of  each  was  penetrated  with  religious 
ideas  and  intimately  bound  up  with  religious  interests.  In 
the  case  of  the  Jews  this  is  evident ;  that  it  was  also  true 
with  regard  to  the  Greeks  will  be  allowed  if  the  great 
national  importance  of  the  mysteries  as  institutions  be 
taken  into  account,  and  if  we  consider  the  fact  that  the 


172  INFLUENCE  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE  AND  CULTURE  vn 

conflict  and  controversy  between  philosophy  and  popular 
religion,  resulting  in  the  progressive  dissolution  of  idolatry, 
and  of  faith  in  the  false  gods  and  in  the  worship  devoted  to 
them,  forms  the  staple  of  Grecian  history  since  the  time  of 
Alexander. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  period  of  religious  fusion  and 
of  fluctuating  contest  betwixt  pagan  and  Christian  Hellenism 
in  order  to  gain  a  clear  appreciation  of  the  nature  of  the 
Greek  influences  which  affected  the  Western  world. 

It  is  well  to  observe  that  conversion  to  Christianity  was 
brought  about  by  free  choice  only  in  the  smallest  degree, 
chiefly  by  compulsion  and  by  the  assistance  of  those  means 
of  intimidation  and  favour  with  which  despotic  rulers  are 
able  to  enforce  the  triumph  of  a  religious  faith.  The 
proportion  of  Christians  to  the  population  at  the  accession 
of  Constantine  amounted  according  to  the  most  probable 
calculations  to  a  twelfth  in  the  East  and  a  fifteenth  in 
the  West.  The  coercive  and  penal  statutes  of  the  Chris- 
tian emperors  succeeded  one  another  with  ever-increasing 
severity  during  two  centuries.  That  a  mass  of  heathen 
conceptions  and  customs  came  thus  to  be  imported  into  the 
Christian  church  was  a  natural  consequence  of  such  legis- 
lation. Although  the  divinities,  many  of  whom  were  mere 
abstractions  and  personified  ideas,  might  be  eliminated  or 
placed  in  the  category  of  evil  spirits,  men's  minds  only 
clung  the  closer  to  the  belief  in  the  magic  effect  of  words, 
forms,  and  ceremonies. 

In  the  year  161  Marcus  Aurelius,  who  may  be  charac- 
terised as  an  embodiment  of  the  Greek  philosophy  and  the 
best  of  all  the  emperors,  ascended  the  imperial  throne.  In 
the  whole  texture  and  bent  of  his  mind  Marcus  Aurelius 
was  far  more  of  a  Greek  than  a  Koman,  of  a  philosopher 
than  a  ruler.  In  his  campaigns  he  was  surrounded  by  a 
train  of  philosophers ;  in  the  camp  he  composed  his  *  Medi- 
tations,' one  of  the  most  remarkable  books  in  the  Greek 
language,  the  mature  fruit  of  a  mind  strengthened  and 


vii  UPON  THE  WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE  MIDDLE   AGES   173 

ennobled  by  severe  self-discipline.  These  were  the  latter 
days  of  Greek  literature,  brilliant  indeed,  but  brief,  for 
afterwards,  under  the  soldier  emperors  and  amid  civil 
war  and  repeated  strokes  of  ill-fortune,  neither  state  nor 
individual  could  recognise  any  other  interest  but  that  of 
self-preservation.  Greek  ascendency,  which  could  only 
have  been  maintained  under  conditions  of  peace  and 
personal  security  guaranteed  by  settled  government,  dis- 
appeared. The  beautiful  richness  of  the  language  became 
a  superfluous,  even  burdensome,  luxury ;  whilst  Latin, 
adapted  to  the  present  time  of  want,  poverty,  and  distress, 
again  took  the  lead.  By  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century 
the  Bishop  of  Eome  could  find  no  one  in  the  whole  city 
who  was  capable  of  producing  a  Greek  composition. 

Within  the  space  of  fifty  years  Eome  was  thrice  plun- 
dered and  laid  waste.  Of  the  twenty-nine  libraries  still  in 
existence  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  not  a 
single  one  remained  in  A.D.  450.  Subsequently  when  in- 
quiry was  made  for  Greek  works  in  Eome  it  was  almost 
always  affirmed  that  none  existed.  Thus,  therefore,  the 
bridge  of  communication  was  broken  down  over  which  Greek 
literature  had  hitherto  found  its  way  to  the  West  and  North- 
west. Things  remained  so  for  fully  a  thousand  years. 
Even  the  temporary  supremacy  of  the  Greek  emperors, 
Justinian  and  his  successors,  brought  no  change  in  this 
respect.  It  was  thought  in  Eome  that  knowledge  of  Greek 
might  well  be  altogether  dispensed  with.  It  would  pro- 
bably any  time  have  been  easy  to  find  an  educated  Greek 
at  hand  to  act  as  secretary.  Here  and  there  such  a  case 
may  actually  have  occurred.  Yet  it  seems  to  have  been 
looked  upon  in  Eome  as  a  point  of  honour  to  write  only  in 
Latin,  for  the  great  collection  of  papal  writings  from  the 
fifth  down  to  the  fifteenth  century  is  exclusively  Latin. 

And  here  it  may  also  be  observed  that,  in  the  metropolis 
of  the  Christian  world,  not  only  Greek  but  all  scientific 
culture  and  enterprise  had  died  out,  and  was  not  resusci- 
tated before  A.D.  1500.  Not  a  single  school  of  learning  nor 


174  INFLUENCE   OF  GREEK  LITERATURE  AND   CULTURE     vn 

public  library  existed.  '  We  have  a  library,'  wrote  Martin  I. 
in  the  year  649  to  Bishop  Amandus,  '  but  no  manuscripts.' 
In  787  there  were  still  a  few  isolated  grammarians  and 
arithmeticians  in  Eome,  some  of  whom  Charles  the  Great 
took  with  him  to  France,  and  classical  study  in  Italy  had 
been  pared  down  to  the  meagre  idea  of  grammar.  But  com- 
plete barbarism  soon  regained  the  upper  hand,  and  in  educa- 
tion Koman  society  stood  far  below  France  or  Germany.  We 
do  indeed  towards  the  end  of  the  ninth  century  meet  with 
a  Koman  librarian,  Anastasius,  who  had  learned  Greek  in 
Byzantium,  and  his  translations  gained  importance  in  the 
church,  although,  as  was  to  be  expected,  in  the  height  of 
the  period  of  hierarchical  forgeries,  they  were  designedly 
untrue.  Again,  at  the  end  of  the  tenth  century,  the  most 
learned  man  of  his  time  appeared  in  Eome,  Gerbert,  or — 
as  pope — Sylvester  II.,  but  his  learning  had  been  acquired  in 
France  and  North  Italy  ;  he  himself  declared  that  there  was 
no  one  in  Kome  of  literary  acquirements  (qui  literas  didice- 
rit),  so  that  one  may  say  he  stood  alone  in  Eome.  Fifty 
years  later  we  learn  from  the  mouth  of  a  devoted  partisan 
of  the  papacy,  Bishop  Bonizo,  that  among  the  Eoman 
clerical  body  there  could  not  be  found  one  man  who  was  not 
either  ignorant,  or  a  simonist,  or  concubinarius.  The  blame 
was  thrown  upon  the  poverty  which  prevented  the  clergy 
from  visiting  foreign  schools.  Poverty  soon  afterwards 
disappeared  once  for  all,  but  with  easy  circumstances,  which 
speedily  grew  into  riches,  no  schools  appeared.  For  900 
years  not  a  single  literary  work  of  any  importance  was 
composed  in  Eome. 

During  the  stormy  period  of  barbarian  immigration 
in  the  fifth  century,  Greek  erudition  had  like  wise  entirely 
died  out  of  the  towns  of  Southern  Gaul,  such  as  Mar- 
seilles, Aries,  and  Lyons.  Intellectual  culture  seems  gra- 
dually and  entirely  to  have  withered  away  in  the  course 
of  the  three  centuries  which  cover  the  transition  from 
the  old  age  of  the  Eoman  Empire  to  the  early  youth  of 
the  Germano-Eoman  countries  and  states,  or  down  to  the 


vii   UPON  THE   WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE   MIDDLE  AGES   175 

year  750.  In  the  Frankish  Empire  Latin  had  ceased  to  be 
the  speech  of  the  people,  and  had  to  be  learnt  as  a  dead 
language.  That  in  spite  of  this  it  maintained  its  ascend- 
ency, and  that  whilst  the  new  mixed  languages  were  yet  in 
process  of  formation  books  could  still  be  written,  was 
entirely  due  to  the  church,  which  had  taken  the  Latin 
language  under  its  care  and  protection  as  the  idiom  of 
divine  worship  and  clerical  usage.  Of  Greek  there 
could  of  course  be  no  longer,  or  not  as  yet,  any  ques- 
tion. 

Here  we  encounter  another  fact  which,  however  easily 
accounted  for,  is  none  the  less  astonishing.  After  the  time 
of  Jerome, — i.e.  from  the  year  420 — the  Western  Latin- 
speaking  world  entirely  laid  aside  the  use  and  study  of  the 
New  Testament  in  the  original.  For  800  years,  that  is  to 
say  until  Koger  Bacon  (1260),  no  one  felt  the  necessity  of 
having  recourse  to  comparison  with  the  original  text, 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  day,  is  the  indispens- 
able means  of  clearing  up  the  obscurities  of  the  Latin 
version.  Not  a  single  Greek  copy  of  the  New  Testament 
could  then  be  seen  in  a  monastic  or  cathedral  library.  The 
same  might  be  said  to  be  the  case  at  the  present  day  in 
Koman  Catholic  countries,  but  we  all  know  the  reason  of 
this  phenomenon,  whereas  in  the  middle  ages,  as  the 
heaps  of  commentaries  show,  a  fervent  zeal  for  Biblical 
study  prevailed. 

I  will  show  by  one  or  two  examples  how  replete  with 
consequences,  both  positive  and  negative,  was  the  long 
estrangement  between  Greece  and  the  West. 

Ever  since  the  seventh  or  eighth  century  a  dogmatic 
passage,  probably  first  introduced  in  Italy,  has  been  interpo- 
lated in  the  Latin  text  of  the  first  Epistle  of  John  (v.  7) .  It  is 
entirely  unknown  to  the  Greek  Church,  and  is  not  to  be  found 
in  any  Greek  MS.  nor  indeed  in  the  older  MSS.  of  the  Latin 
version.  Since  the  beginning  of  Biblical  criticism  the  spuri- 
ousness  of  the  passage  has  been  generally  recognised ;  yet  for 
hundreds  of  years  the  interpolation  has  disfigured  the  text  of 


176   INFLUENCE   OF   GEEEK  LITEKATUKE  AND   CULTUEE      vn 

the  Latin  version  of  the  Bible,  and  the  Western  Church 
cannot  avoid  the  reproach  that  whilst  the  Eastern  Church 
has  preserved  its  Bible  intact,  carelessness  and  ignorance  on 
the  part  of  the  Westerns  have  allowed  such  an  interpolation 
to  stand  in  the  text. 

Another  example  of  this  kind  is  afforded  by  the  eccle- 
siastical prohibition  against  taking  interest  for  money. 
Misled  by  the  erroneous  translation  of  the  passage  in  Luke 
vi.  35 — nihil  inde  sperantes,  instead  of  nihil  desperantes — • 
the  Western  Church  imagined  these  words  to  convey  a  pro- 
hibition of  usury  by  Christ ;  the  heads  of  the  church, 
and  foremost  amongst  them  Clement  V.  and  the  Council 
of  Vienne  in  1311,  made  it  out  to  be  a  divinely  revealed 
dogma.  Inconceivable  perplexity  and  disturbance  of  social 
as  well  as  mercantile  intercourse  arose  in  consequence ; 
the  laity,  especially  the  merchant  class,  found  itself  under 
a  yoke  so  terrible  and  oppressive  that  nothing  like  it  is 
known  in  all  antiquity. 

Few  names  can  be  cited  as  upholders  of  what  in  those 
days  passed  for  learning— Gregory  of  Tours  in  France, 
Isidore  in  Spain,  Aldhelm  and  Bede  in  England,  Boniface 
in  Germany.  Of  these  Isidore  and  Bede  enjoyed  the  highest 
reputation,  and  their  writings  were  the  most  sought  after. 
Still  they  were  mere  compilers  destitute  of  original  thought, 
transcribers,  or  abridgers.  Meanwhile,  it  was  for  this  very 
reason  that  they  were  so  popular.  Italy  could  boast  of  no 
other  than  Pope  Gregory  I.  who  made  a  principle  of  re- 
jecting all  other  than  Biblical  and  patristic  knowlege.  None 
of  the  above-mentioned  writers  (with  the  exception  of 
Bede)  understood  Greek.  Only  in  England  had  Theodore 
of  Tarsus,  whom  Pope  Vitalian  made  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury (660-669),  diffused  some  knowledge  of  his  native 
language ;  but  it  was  a  light  which  was  very  shortly 
extinguished. 

With  Charles  the  Great  came  a  revival  of  all  that  in 
that  age  was  considered  worth  knowing.  The  two  most 
learned  men  of  his  court — Paulus  Diaconus  and  the 


vii   UPON  THE  WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES    177 

marvellous  Alcuin,  a  phenomenon  in  his  time  for  acumen 
and  refined  culture — knew  Greek,  and  made  use  of  it  in  the 
Byzantine  iconoclast  controversy.  Charles's  theologians 
were  apparently  superior  to  the  Greek  theologians  of  the 
time,  who  could  only  take  refuge  in  fictitious  testimony  and 
perversions  of  the  Biblical  text.  The  supposition,  however, 
that  a  Greek  school  existed  at  Osnabriick  rests  upon 
spurious  records.  Soon  after  the  death  of  Charles  the  dis- 
memberment of  the  Carolingian  monarchy  began  amidst 
bloody  wars  and  fratricidal  contests.  Nations  were  divided, 
new  kingdoms  arose,  and  in  the  confusion  and  bewilderment 
of  the  time  the  greater  part  of  the  schools,  and  the  cultiva- 
tion of  learning  introduced  and  fostered  by  Charles,  died 
out.  Not  until  the  twelfth  century  did  a  fresh  impulse 
spring  up,  more  vigorous,  comprehensive,  and  durable 
than  that  which  education  had  received  from  Charles  the 
Great. 

The  most  trustworthy  informant  as  to  the  condition  of 
learning  during  those  stirring  and  restless  times  is  the 
Englishman  John  of  Salisbury,  who  died  in  1180.  He 
was  the  best  of  Abelard's  pupils,  and  outstripped  all  his 
contemporaries  in  encyclopaedic  learning  and  knowledge 
of  the  Boman  classics.  The  school  of  Paris,  which  gradu- 
ally was  to  become  the  queen  and  mother  of  the  European 
universities,  was  then  in  its  first  modest  beginnings.  The 
school  of  Chartres  meanwhile  was  flourishing  under  the 
leadership  of  the  famous  Bernard  of  Chartres.  There  the 
ancient  authors  were  commented  on  and  imitated.  The 
'  Timaeus '  of  Plato  was  known  and  studied  through  the 
incomplete  translation  of  Chalcidius  :  this  was,  perhaps, 
the  most  influential  of  all  Greek  writings  during  the  whole 
of  the  middle  ages ;  all  other  writings  of  Plato  remained 
entirely  unknown.  Besides  the  '  Timseus,'  the  philosophic 
writings  of  Apuleius  were  used  as  a  favourite  source  of 
knowledge  of  Platonism.  Aristotle  was  only  known  through 
his  works  on  logic.  John  of  Salisbury  was  acquainted 
neither  with  the  '  Metaphysics  '  nor  the  '  Ethics.'  He  and 

N 


178  INFLUENCE   OF  GREEK  LITERATURE  AND   CULTURE    vn 

the  other  theologians  of  the  time  must  have  gleaned  all  they 
knew  of  Greek  philosophy,  in  the  first  place  from  Cicero, 
and  in  the  next  from  Macrobius  and  Seneca.  They  adorned 
their  writings  with  a  few  Greek  phrases,  but  it  is  evident 
that  none  of  them,  not  even  Abelard,  had  read  the  whole 
of  any  Greek  work. 

It  was  not  entirely  obtuseness  of  intellect  and  mental 
inertness  which  led  the  world  of  the  middle  ages  to  forego 
any  attempt  at  gaining  an  insight  into  Greek  philo- 
sophy. It  was,  at  the  same  time,  fear.  Some  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  systems  could  be  obtained  through  Cicero  and 
Augustine,  and  it  was  also  known  from  Jerome  that  the 
influence  of  that  most  dangerous  heretic,  Origen,  had  con- 
taminated the  whole  literature  of  the  Greek  Church.  The 
Western  mind,  conscious  of  its  own  weakness  and  insuffi- 
ciency, quailed  before  the  dangerous  task  of  recognising 
and  sifting  the  good  and  the  true  from  the  mass  of  false 
doctrine,  real  or  imaginary.  What  could  the  sword  of 
Scanderbeg  effect  without  the  arm  of  Scanderbeg  ?  Even 
the  works  of  pagan  Home  were  not  to  be  meddled  with 
except  with  the  greatest  caution  and  with  ever-increasing 
suspicion.  The  Komans  themselves  had  already  adopted, 
with  few  exceptions,  the  prescription  of  Ennius,  only  to  sip 
from  the  fountains  of  philosophy,  never  to  plunge  into 
them. 

The  highest  authorities,  Jerome,  Augustine,  Gregory 
the  Great,  and  most  of  the  monastic  fathers,  had  expressed 
themselves  in  terms  of  warning  against  immoderate  in- 
dulgence in  such  doubtful  intellectual  sustenance.  Even 
Alcuin  forbade  to  his  monks  the  study  of  Virgil,  although 
he  had  formerly  enjoyed  it  himself.  Frightful  examples 
served  as  warnings.  In  Italy  some  learned  linguists  of 
the  tenth  century — the  most  esteemed  of  them  was  Bilgard 
—  had  given  to  the  Eoman  classics  the  preference  before 
the  Bible.  They  were  all  executed. 

In  the  whole  course  of  the  middle  ages  only  one  man  re- 
cognised clearly  the  great  value  and  need  of  an  acquaintance 


vii  UPON  THE  WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  179 

with  Greek  literature  even  for  the  church,  and  advocated 
earnestly  the  filling  up  of  this  enormous  deficiency  in  the 
intellectual  knowledge  of  the  time.  This  man  was  Roger 
Bacon,  who  lived  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
He  deserves  to  be  called  the  most  original,  independent, 
far-sighted  intellect  of  his  age.  But  he  was  a  preacher  in 
the  wilderness.  His  own  order  showed  itself  hostile  to 
him ;  he  had  to  suffer  imprisonment  and  other  torments. 
It  is  from  him  that  we  learn  the  effect  produced  upon 
Western  literature  by  the  Crusades.  Greek  MSS.  were 
nowhere  to  be  found  in  the  West.  They  had  formerly  been 
easily  obtainable  in  Constantinople,  but  between  the  Greeks 
and  the  Latins  hatred  and  repulsion  had  now  risen  to 
their  greatest  height.  The  taking  and  sack  of  the  Greek 
capital,  the  erection  of  a  Latin  empire,  and  the  despotic 
ill-treatment  and  oppression  of  the  population  left  no 
possibility  of  reconciliation  or  of  a  renewal  of  peaceful  inter- 
course. 

Bacon,  who  also  looked  upon  the  Greeks  as  schismatics, 
and  as  consequently  enemies  to  the  faith,  likewise  declared 
that  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  MSS.  from  them  was  in- 
creased by  their  suspicion  that  they  would  be  falsified  in 
translation.  He  himself  laments  the  wanton  manner  in 
which  translations  were  made  without  adequate  knowledge 
of  the  language ;  they  were  altogether  faulty  and  mislead- 
ing. Through  the  whole  of  Christendom  there  were  not 
five  men  who  had  thoroughly  mastered  the  Greek,  Hebrew, 
or  Latin  grammars,  although  some  few  could  speak  either 
Greek  or  Arabic.  Translation  was  consequently  accounted 
so  difficult  that  most  of  those  who  applied  themselves  to  it 
were  reputed  to  deal  in  magic,  all  the  more  so  that  among 
the  number  were  Jews  and  Saracens.  General  curiosity 
was  turned  towards  Aristotle,  for  although  some  of  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Stagirite  were  known  through  their  Arabic  trans- 
lations, it  was  clear  that  these  were  very  imperfect ;  and 
costly  treasures,  it  was  thought,  lay  hidden  in  the  yet 
unknown  writings.  Attention,  at  the  same  time,  was  drawn 

N   2 


180  INFLUENCE  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE  AND  CULTURE    vn 

towards  the  pseudo-sciences  of  the  time,  which  were  like- 
wise amongst  the  questionable  gifts  which  the  Oriental 
Greeks  had  lavished  upon  the  West — alchemy,  or  the  trans- 
mutation of  metals,  astrology,  the  casting  of  horoscopes, 
and  magic  in  every  conceivable  form. 

What  the  short-sighted  apathy  of  the  Western  intellect 
could  conceive  no  use  for  the  East  appropriated  with  a 
youthful  ardour  for  research.  The  Arabs,  who  hitherto 
had  remained  entirely  shut  out  from  the  civilised  world, 
roused  by  the  inspiration  of  their  new  religion,  had  now 
made  themselves  masters  of  all  the  Greek  centres  of  civili- 
sation. They  had  conquered  the  Byzantine  Monarchy,  the 
guardian  of  Greek  culture ;  the  Oriental  Greeks  had  sub- 
mitted to  their  yoke.  Like  the  Komans  they  had  become 
the  pupils  of  the  conquered,  yet  in  quite  a  different  and 
more  restricted  sense.  Poetical,  historical,  rhetorical  litera- 
ture they  left  quite  untouched ;  their  interest  was  centred 
in  philosophy  and  the  natural  sciences,  astronomy  and 
mathematics,  and,  above  all,  in  the  art  of  medicine.  Just 
as  in  the  Christian  world  philosophy  and  theology,  so  in  the 
Mohammedan  world  philosophy  and  medicine,  were  insepa- 
able.  The  Arabian  philosopher  invariably  studied  medicine ; 
the  physician  was  a  philosopher.  The  movement  began 
from  above ;  the  impulse  to  it  was  given  by  the  Khaliph 
Al  Mamum  (813-833  A.D.)  of  the  house  of  the  Abassides, 
who,  dissatisfied  with  narrow  Moslem  orthodoxy,  turned  his 
attention,  like  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  to  the  investigation 
of  foreign  religions  and  systems,  and,  in  pursuance  of  his 
end,  caused  Greek  MSS.  to  be  searched  for  throughout  the 
East,  and  translations  to  be  made  either  by  Syrian  Chris- 
tians or  by  Arabs.  The  teaching  of  the  Stagirite  and  the 
immense  extent  of  his  knowledge  filled  even  the  Moham- 
medans with  admiration,  and  an  Aristotelian  school  flou- 
rished for  nearly  three  centuries  in  the  dominions  of  the 
Kaliph. 

Under  the  dynasty  of  the  Ommiades,  Graeco-Arabian 
science  and   literature  were  carried   from   the  East   into 


vii  UPON  THE  WESTERN  WORLD  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES   181 

Moslem  Spain,  where,  from  the  ninth  century  onwards, 
institutions  for  instruction  and  learning  reached  a  period 
of  prosperity  such  as  only  long  afterwards,  and  then  but 
partially,  was  to  be  seen  in  Western  Christendom.  Latin 
Christendom,  when  seeking  to  become  acquainted  with 
Greek  works,  had  first  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  Spanish  Mo- 
hammedan teachers ;  then  to  translate  those  works  from 
Arabic  into  Latin,  and  finally  to  listen  to  instruction  on 
Aristotle  from  the  mouths  of  his  Greek  commentators. 
The  Greek  classical  works  on  the  art  of  medicine,  especially 
Hippocrates,  took  the  same  circuitous  route  to  reach  the 
Komano-Germanic  peoples  in  an  intelligible  form,  before 
they  could  be  studied  in  the  schools  of  Salerno  and  Mont- 
pellier. 

Guizot  has  observed  that  during  the  whole  of  the 
middle  ages  the  legends  of  the  martyrs,  whether  in  prose 
or  verse,  furnished  the  literature  most  welcome  and  most  in 
request,  not  only  amongst  the  clergy  but  amongst  the  laity. 
The  text  of  by  far  the  greater  number  of  these  legends  was 
derived  from  the  Greek. 

Now  it  can  hardly  surprise  us  that  such  legends  should 
have  afforded  such  welcome  and  attractive  subjects  for 
perusal,  and  should  have  been  so  diligently  collected,  and 
versified  and  adorned  by  the  poets.  They  were  needed  in 
an  age  of  violence,  when  liberty  and  life  were  insecure, 
and  when  existence  was  so  full  of  fear  and  anxiety.  The 
martyrs,  witnessing  with  heroic  constancy  and  steadfast 
faith  to  the  truth,  served  as  patterns  of  encouragement, 
and  also  as  intercessors.  In  addition  to  this  came  the 
longing  after  types  of  female  heroism.  Classical  antiquity 
only  knew  one  poetical  figure  of  magnanimous  self-sacri- 
fice in  woman— Antigone;  Christian  legends  celebrated  the 
unconquerable  devotion  and  fortitude  of  multitudes  of 
women  and  virgins.  The  preference  of  a  credulous  age  for 
miraculous  stories,  and  the  tendency  of  the  uneducated  to 
delight  in  descriptions  of  cruel  martyrdoms,  must  also  be 
taken  into  account. 


182   INFLUENCE   OF   GREEK  LITERATURE   AND   CULTURE    vn 

The  attraction  of  legend-lore  was  heightened  by  con- 
trast with  the  courtly  and  knightly  poesy  of  the  time 
imitated  by  both  Germans  and  Italians  from  the  French  ; 
the  poesy  of  chivalric  woman- worship,  of  the  struggle  with 
the  infidels,  with  heathens  and  Mohammedans,  abounding 
in  endless  descriptions  of  the  pursuit  of  aimless  adventures 
and  the  insatiable  love  of  fighting  for  fighting's  sake.  We 
can  understand  that  the  religiously  minded  amongst  the 
poets  and  readers  of  the  triumphant  stories  of  the  martyrs, 
should  give  the  preference  to  these  simple,  plain  narratives 
of  touching  deeds  and  sufferings. 

It  was  a  Byzantine  statesman,  Simeon  Metaphrastes  in 
Constantinople,  who  first  put  together  a  great  collection  of 
somewhat  fanciful  stories  of  martyrs  and  saints ;  a  selec- 
tion of  these  were  translated  into  Latin,  probably  by  the 
monks  of  Southern  Italy.  One  might  almost  affirm  it  to 
be  the  -  richest  collection  of  fables  in  the  world.  Much 
of  it  is  pure  invention,  whilst  in  some  of  the  biographies 
a  grain  of  truth  lies  hidden  beneath  a  mass  of  extravagant 
fiction  and  hyperbolical  phrases.  Simeon's  collection  was 
surpassed  in  the  thirteenth  century  by  an  Italian,  Jacobus 
de  Voragine,  in  his  '  Golden  Legend ; '  his  biographies 
are  nearly  all  of  them  insipid  and  ridiculous  tales.  Never- 
theless, or  perhaps  upon  that  very  account,  the  '  Golden 
Legend  '  became  one  of  the  most  popular  of  books,  and 
furnished  material  for  innumerable  discourses  from  the 
pulpit.  It  is  obvious  that  this  could  only  happen  in  an  age 
when  the  mass  of  the  clergy  and  the  laity  moved  in  a 
thick  atmosphere  of  illusion  and  deceit ;  lacking  entirely 
the  faculty  of  distinguishing  the  historically  possible  and 
conceivable  from  simple  impossibilities. 

It  was  inevitable  that  these  legends  should  become  inter- 
woven with  the  historical  works  of  the  time,  irretrievably 
confusing  them,  and  entailing  the  introduction  of  a  multi- 
tude of  other  fables.  The  German  imperial  chronicle  was 
principally  drawn  from  legends.  To  what  a  pitch  of  be- 
wilderment historians  were  brought  through  the  mingling 


vii   UPON  THE   WESTERN  WOELD  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   183 

and  interchange  of  fiction  and  well-founded  fact,  may  be 
fully  seen  in  the  writings  of  Godfrey  of  Viterbo,  Helinand, 
Gervase  of  Tilbury,  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  and  others. 
As  a  coping-stone  to  this  crushing  edifice  of  falsehood  and 
fable,  there  arose  in  the  course  of  the  ninth  century  a 
series  of  fictions  and  forgeries  even  more  confusing  and 
misleading  than  the  ancient  fables  of  Greece,  affecting  the 
religious  and  politico-religious  province  of  life,  and  the 
spuriousness  of  which  was  recognised  by  no  one. 

The  belief  in  demons,  systematised  by  the  Neo-Pla- 
tonists,  combined  with  pagan  conceptions  of  possession 
and  the  power  of  exorcism,  as  well  as  the  delusion  that  the 
souls  of  the  dead  took  possession  of  the  living — all  of  this, 
when  transferred  to  the  popular  consciousness  amongst 
Christians,  was  tolerated  or  encouraged  by  the  Greek  fathers 
of  the  church,  and  had,  amongst  others,  this  effect,  that 
all  mental  diseases  were  looked  upon  and  treated  as  cases 
of  possession.  The  teaching  of  Origen,  that  madness  was 
only  a  form  of  demoniacal  possession  to  which  human 
nature  was  subject,  was  readily  accepted  in  the  West,  with 
the  consequence  that  for  more  than  a  thousand  years 
the  majority  of  mental  disorders  were  regarded  as  demo- 
niacal possession,  and  the  supposed  energumens  treated,  or 
rather  maltreated,  according  to  the  practice  laid  down 
by  the  church.  This  is  a  dark  page  in  the  annals  of 
Europe. 

This  state  of  things  involved  a  retrogressive  step  for 
which  a  parallel  can  scarcely  be  found.  For  even  400 
years  before  Christ,  Hippocrates,  and  later  Galens,  and 
in  Eome  Caelius  Aurelianus,  had  already  recognised  that 
mental  diseases  were  identical  with  diseases  of  the  brain. 

Yet  another  fatal  gift  of  Greek  delusion  must  here  be 
mentioned.  This  was  the  invention  of  legends,  such  as 
those  of  Cyprian  and  Justina,  or  of  Anthemius  and 
Theophilus,  in  which  heathen  demonology  appeared  in  a 
Christian  garb.  The  tale  of  Anthemius  and  Theophilus  is 
the  first  instance  of  an  imaginary  picture  so  dark,  so  pro- 


184  INFLUENCE  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE  AND  CULTURE  vn 

foundly  unchristian,  and  so  fraught  with  the  direst  mis- 
chief, that  one  feels  almost  tempted  to  characterise  as 
suicidal  the  avidity  with  which  it  was  forthwith  seized 
upon  and  systematically  enlarged  by  the  West.  Moved  by 
the  desire  to  regain  a  lost  office,  Theophilus  enters  into  a 
contract  with  Satan,  whom  he  has  summoned  to  his  aid, 
and  signs  a  document  in  which  he  denies  Christ  and  the 
Virgin.  No  sooner  has  he  regained  his  office,  than  he 
does  penance,  invokes  the  Virgin,  and  prays  that  the  con- 
tract may  be  laid  upon  his  breast  during  sleep.  Thereupon 
it  is  publicly  burnt,  but  he  himself  soon  afterwards  dies 
a  pardoned  sinner.  This  legend,  translated  into  every 
language,  has  been  related  in  every  form  which  prose  narra- 
tive or  epic  poem  or  drama  could  admit  of;  hardly  any 
other  has  been  so  popular.  I  can  in  no  way  account  for 
the  hold  it  took  upon  the  public  mind.  It  shows,  however, 
in  what  manner  the  idea,  entirely  unknown  to  the  early 
Christians,  of  a  compact  with  Satan  arrived  at  such  pre- 
dominance, and  what  deep  root  the  belief  in  witchcraft, 
formally  adopted  by  the  church,  and  solemnly  erected  by 
her  authority  into  a  dogma,  could  take. 

Let  us  turn  to  a  more  wholesome  style  of  literature. 
One  of  the  legends  for  which  the  West  is  indebted  to  the 
Greeks,  and  which  achieved  the  greatest  popularity,  finding 
its  way,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  into  all  languages,  was 
the  religious  romance  of  Balaam  and  Jehosaphat.  It  was 
supposed  to  have  been  composed  by  John  of  Damascus, 
the  most  famous  theologian  of  his  time.  It  exhibits  a 
fusion  of  Buddhism  with  Christianity,  Buddha  himself 
being  properly  the  hero  of  the  romance.  Of  this,  however, 
nobody  in  the  West  could  at  that  time  have  had  any 
suspicion. 

One  favourite  romance  of  the  middle  ages,  derived 
from  a  Greek  source,  that  of  Apollonius  of  Tyre,  assumed 
many  forms  both  in  prose  and  verse.  ^Esop's  fables 
had  a  share  in  the  origin  cf  the  satirical  stories  about 
animals,  a  bold  clever  style  of  fiction  to  which  there  is 


vii   UPON  THE   WESTERN   WORLD  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   185 

nothing  to  be  compared  either  in  Greek  or  Eoman  litera- 
ture. Since  there  was  no  direct  knowledge  of  Homer  in 
the  middle  ages,  the  source  from  which  the  numerous 
poetic  narratives  of  the  Trojan  myth  were  drawn  by  such 
writers  as  Henry  of  Veldeke,  and  Herbert  of  Fritzlar  in 
Germany,  and  Benoit  de  Saint  More  in  France,  was  the 
Latin  version  of  which  the  original  was  attributed  to  the 
fictitious  Greek  authors  Diktys  and  Dares.  In  these  narra- 
tives the  Greek  heroes  are  transformed  into  knights  errant, 
love  adventures  are  made  the  centre  of  interest,  and  Homer, 
whose  most  beautiful  scenes  are  naturally  ignored,  is  con- 
demned for  representing  the  gods  as  carrying  on  war  with 
mankind — probably  a  reminiscence  of  a  Latin  quotation 
from  Plato.  In  the  middle  ages  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
a  Latin  translation  of  Homer.  The  effect  of  the  void  which 
ignorance  of  the  greatest  of  ancient  poets  caused  in  the 
education  and  culture  of  those  times,  is  very  perceptible 
through  the  whole  course  of  Western  literature  and  culture. 
It  certainly  mainly  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the  best  efforts 
of  the  most  aspiring  spirits  fail  to  rise  above  mediocrity, 
or  sink  after  a  momentary  rise.  Yirgil,  though  generally 
and  diligently  studied,  and  almost  idolised,  could  be  no 
substitute  for  Homer,  even  though  the  '  Odyssey '  might  be 
the  foundation  of  the  first  half  of  the  '  ^Eneid,'  and  the 
'  Iliad '  of  the  second.  Virgil,  however,  has  worked  up  to- 
gether Greek  and  Latin  material,  mixing  and  confusing 
different  periods  and  stages  of  civilisation,  and  moreover 
has  admitted  utterly  alien  religious  matter  out  of  the 
philosophy  and  the  mysteries  of  his  own  time.  He  has 
no  doubt  imitated  the  phraseology  of  Homer ;  but  of  the 
Homeric  spirit  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  the  *  ^Eneid. 

To  the  poets  of  the  middle  ages,  Alexander  of  Macedon 
was  a  more  attractive  theme  than  the  tale  of  Troy.  No 
more  appropriate  material  in  fact  for  the  poetic  fancy  could 
be  found  than  this  hero  of  Asiatic  and  African  conquest. 
The  Greek  romance  attributed  to  Callisthenes,  composed  at 
the  end  of  the  fourth  century  and  forthwith  translated 


186   INFLUENCE   OF  GREEK  LITERATURE   AND   CULTURE    vn 

into  Latin,  a  tissue  of  the  most  marvellous  adventures 
and  extraordinary  wonders,  served  as  the  source  from 
which  to  draw.  The  French  poet  De  Berney  represents 
the  king  and  his  Macedonian  generals  as  modern  knights, 
sallying  forth  to  tournaments  and  falcon  hunts.  The 
fancy  of  the  German  Lamprecht  is  less  extravagant ;  but 
altogether  these  poets  are  hardly  to  be  surpassed  in 
fabulous  absurdities. 

I  hasten  to  a  conclusion.  Within  the  period  extending 
over  more  than  a  thousand  years,  over  which  we  have  taken 
a  rapid  flight,  we  have  passed  over  many  a  dreary  tract 
of  gloom  and  confusion.  Involuntarily  we  ask  if  such  a 
state  of  things  could  be  necessary.  Could  it  be  necessary 
that  mankind  should  follow  such  circuitous  and  misleading 
paths,  amid  so  much  sorrow  and  misdoing,  in  order  to 
arrive  at  the  measure  of  civilisation  which  we  now  enjoy  ? 
Why  should  an  advance  in  knowledge,  which  is  now  accom- 
plished in  a  decade,  have  formerly  cost  a  century  ? 

I  might  reply  with  Dante — 

What  then, 

And  who  art  thou,  that  on  the  stool  would'st  sit 
To  judge  at  distance  of  a  thousand  miles, 
With  the  short-sighted  vision  of  a  span  ? 

(Parad.  xix.  79.) 

Still  I  emphatically  assert  that  the  benefit  which  man- 
kind has  derived  from  Greek  influences,  the  earlier  as  well 
as  the  later,  far  outweighs  the  mischief  they  caused. 

It  is  a  general  law  of  universal  history,  to  which  every 
age  and  every  people  however  highly  gifted  must  submit, 
that  all  intellectual  and  moral  progress  must  be  purchased 
by  heavy  sacrifices  ;  that  no  truth  can  be  wrestled  for 
and  secured  without  the  throes  of  martyrdom.  The  story 
of  Galileo  repeats  itself  again  and  again  in  various  forms. 
I  also  think  that  in  the  future  the  results  brought  about 
by  the  study  of  the  great  examples  and  teachers  of  antiquity 
will  prove  still  more  beneficial  than  they  have  been  in  the 
past. 


vii   UPON  THE    WESTEKN  WORLD  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES  187 

When  we  glance  back  to  the  condition  of  delusion  and 
bondage  in  which  nations  were  formerly  held,  we  rejoice  to 
welcome  and  contrast  with  it  our  own  enjoyment  of  intellec- 
tual freedom.  And  wherein  does  this  freedom  consist  ? 
Surely,  as  Goethe  says,  in  being  able  to  do  at  all  times 
and  in  every  place  whatever  reason  dictates  as  the 
best  to  be  done.  Our  Academy  is  a  conservative  body. 
Amongst  its  responsibilities  is  that  of  ensuring  the  preser- 
vation whilst  preventing  the  abuse  of  so  high  a  pri- 
vilege. 


188  THE   ORIGIN   OF  THE   EASTERN   QUESTION  vm 


VIII 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  ' 

AMONGST  the  great  problems  of  our  age,  none  is  more  fitted 
to  occupy  the  thoughts,  not  only  of  the  professional  states- 
man but  of  every  keen-sighted  individual  who  takes  an 
interest  in  politics,  than  the  so-called  Eastern  Question. 
It  is  the  pivot  upon  which  the  general  politics  of  the 
century  now  drawing  to  a  close  are  turning — and  it  will  be 
so  for  the  coming  century  also.  More  than  any  other  it 
will  furnish  the  standard  by  which  later  generations  will 
measure  the  tact  and  ability  of  the  statesmen  to  whose 
guidance  the  world's  history  is  now  committed. 

It  is  not  a  question  which  has  disturbed  the  peace  of 
Europe  only  yesterday ;  it  is  not  even  a  production  of  this 
century.  It  has  exercised  a  powerful  influence  upon  the 
course  of  the  world's  history  for  above  500  years.  Proteus- 
like  it  has  assumed  various  shapes,  experienced  and 
engendered  many  changes.  Men  in  Europe  have  often 
behaved  as  though  it  had  been  settled  or  had  ceased  to 
exist  ;  it  has  been  underrated,  or  grossly  misunderstood, 
or  people  have  wilfully  shut  their  eyes  to  its  magnitude 
and  closed  their  hearts  and  ears  to  its  warnings  ;  but 
the  consequences  have  invariably  been  serious — the  fate 
of  Europe  is  bound  up  with  the  Eastern  Question. 

It  is  well  worth  while   to   go  back  in  history  and   to 

1  Address  delivered  at  the  festive  meeting  of  the  Academy  of  Munich, 
July  25,  1879.  This  address,  besides  being  printed  in  the  Allgemeine 
Zeitung,  appeared  as  a  separate  pamphlet  amongst  the  publications  of  the 
Alma  Mater,  Vienna,  1879. 


vin  THE   ORIGIN   OF  THE   EASTERN   QUESTION  189 

consider  the  beginning — the  first  stage  of  the  Eastern 
Question ;  and  to  try  to  explain  how  it  came  to  pass  that 
at  that  time,  seven  centuries  ago,  under  exceptionally 
favourable  circumstances,  the  object  upon  which  the  desire 
of  the  whole  of  Christian  Europe  was  set,  failed  to  be 
attained ;  and  now,  in  spite  of  immense  sacrifices  willingly 
offered,  a  heritage  pregnant  with  mischief  was  left  to  the 
generations  that  were  to  follow. 

I  have  singled  out  the  period  of  the  Crusades— the 
two  centuries  from  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  to  the  end 
of  the  thirteenth  century — as  the  first  stage  of  the  Eastern 
Question. 

It  was  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eleventh  century  that 
this  question  first  presented  itself  as  a  problem  demanding 
immediate  solution  at  the  hands  of  the  Western  world. 
The  Asiatic  countries  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean,  the 
Anatolian  peninsula,  and  Syria,  are  geographically,  his- 
torically, and  commercially  nearer  to  Europe  and  more 
intimately  connected  with  that  continent  than  with  the 
interior  of  Asia.  Syria,  which  had  fallen  under  Moslem 
rule  as  early  as  the  seventh  century,  still  possessed  a 
very  numerous  Christian  population.  Along  the  coast 
indeed  the  Christians  formed  the  majority.  In  Asia 
Minor  the  Byzantines  and  the  Seljuk  Turks  were  still 
fighting  for  the  mastery.  After  the  fall  of  the  Kaliphate 
of  Damascus,  the  situation  of  the  Christians  in  Syria 
and  Jerusalem  had  become  worse ;  they  were  exposed  to 
the  oppression  and  rapacity  of  the  wild  Turkish  hordes, 
and  had  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  war  which  had  burst  out 
between  the  Egyptians  and  Seljuks.  The  ever-increasing 
bands  of  pilgrims  were  frequently  ill-treated  and  despoiled. 
Their  appeals  for  help  had  repeatedly  reached  the  West, 
and  to  many  it  appeared  both  shameful  and  intolerable  that 
the  church,  which  at  that  very  moment  was  rising  to  the 
height  of  worldly  power,  should  remain  in  helpless  servitude 
in  the  very  place  of  her  birth.  The  popes  bethought  them- 
selves of  sending  assistance,  They  saw  that  no  greater 


190  THE   ORIGIN   OF  THE   EASTERN  QUESTION  vili 

increase  of  dignity  and  power  could  accrue  to  the  Eoman 
chair,  than  if  Syria  and  the  universal  mother  church  of 
Jerusalem  were  brought  under  its  sway. 

The  letter  which  in  986  Gerbert  wrote  in  the  name  of 
the  Church  of  Jerusalem  only  appealed  for  assistance  in 
money.  A  more  serious,  bolder  appeal  was  made  by  Pope 
Sergius  IV.  in  1010,  when  news  was  received  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  by  Kaliph  Hakem. 
Issuing  an  order  for  a  general  peace,  Sergius  proclaimed 
that  a  great  fleet  was  to  be  got  ready  by  Genoa,  Venice, 
and  the  rest  of  Italy,  to  convey  the  army,  of  which  he  him- 
self would  take  command,  to  Syria  for  the  purpose  of  reco- 
vering the  grave  of  Christ.  But  of  any  result  of  this 
proclamation,  to  which  was  not  yet  appended  any  offer  of 
absolution  or  indulgence,  there  is  no  record.  A  procla- 
mation by  Gregory  VII.  remained  equally  ineffectual  ;  he 
also  was  ready  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  an  army 
destined  for  the  East,  not  however  with  a  view  to  the  con- 
quest of  Syria  or  Palestine  although  the  rescue  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  entered  incidentally  into  his  design,  but  with  the 
object  of  freeing  Asia  Minor  from  the  yoke  of  the  Seljukian 
Turks,  securing  the  safety  of  Constantinople,  and — most 
important  of  all — reducing  the  Byzantine  Church  to  entire 
submission  to  the  papacy  ;  of  attaining,  in  fact,  the  purpose 
for  which  Innocent  III.  caused  the  Crusade  of  1204  to  be 
proclaimed. 

True  it  is  that  the  first  Crusade,  with  its  brilliant 
results,  was  an  undertaking  mainly  due  to  French  enter- 
prise ;  as,  therefore,  it  has  been  asserted,  frequently  in 
former  times,  and  quite  recently  again  in  Paris,  that  the  fame 
and  honours  of  the  Crusade  must  be  assigned  to  the  French 
nation,  the  contention  must  on  the  whole  be  allowed  ;  but 
obviously  on  condition  that  that  nation  should  also  share 
with  the  authors  of  the  movement  the  blame  for  the  endless 
disasters  of  the  expedition.  It  was  a  French  pope,  Urban  II., 
who  issued  the  summons  for  it  ;  a  French  synod,  that  of 
Clermont  in  Auvergne,  which  gave  the  final  assent  to  it. 


vm  THE   ORIGIN  OF  THE   EASTERN   QUESTION  191 

From  France  first  proceeded  the  cry,  which  then  and 
later  became  the  general  watchword  :  '  Dieu  le  veult.'  The 
chivalry  of  France,  impatient  of  idleness,  eagerly  grasp- 
ing at  an  occasion  which  promised  gain  and  glory  both  here 
and  hereafter,  flocked  to  join  the  ranks,  and  formed  the 
nucleus  and  main  strength  of  the  army.  They  were  joined 
by  the  Normans  from  Lower  Italy,  and  even  Lorraine, 
Burgundy,  and  the  Ehineland  were  carried  away  by  the 
movement.  Germany,  however,  wasted  by  thirty  years 
of  civil  war,  and  the  purely  Slavonic  countries,  as  well 
as  England  and  Scandinavia,  held  aloof  from  the  enter- 
prise, although  a  certain  number  of  English,  Danish, 
and  Norwegian  knights  took  part  in  it.  In  the  firm  belief 
that  as  the  chosen  instruments  of  God  they  were  under  His 
guidance  for  the  accomplishment  of  His  will,  amid  constant 
signs,  visions,  and  miracles,  hundreds  of  thousands  flocked 
to  join  the  Crusade.  Most  of  the  pilgrims  perished,  and 
but  a  small  remnant  ever  found  its  way  home.  Nevertheless 
Jerusalem  was  taken,  the  Holy  Places  passed  once  more 
into  Christian  hands,  and  a  Christian  kingdom,  with  a 
German  prince  as  the  first  king,  was  established.  Four 
principalities  in  nominal  dependence  upon  it,  Antioch, 
Tripoli,  Edessa,  and  Tiberias,  were  formed  at  the  same  time. 
The  foundation  of  the  kingdom  was  rendered  possible  only 
by  the  discord  which  prevailed  amongst  the  Moslem  princes  ; 
it  wanted  the  towns  and  fortresses  which  might  have 
given  it  solidity,  for  they  had  either  remained  in  the 
possession  of  the  enemy  or  speedily  fell  again  into  his 
hands.  Incapable  of  standing  by  its  own  strength,  sur- 
rounded by  powerful  Moslem  princes  and  warlike  peoples, 
it  could  only  be  maintained  by  the  continual  reinforce- 
ment of  fresh  Crusaders. 

Yet  the  brilliant  expectations  of  the  West,  justified  by 
the  first  victorious  results  of  the  expedition,  seemed  about 
to  be  realised  ;  fresh  victories  were  gained  over  the  terrified 
Moslems,  whose  strength  was  continually  wasted  by  in- 
ternal dissensions,  and  soon  the  whole  of  Syria,  from  El- 


192  THE   OKIGIN   OF  THE   EASTERN   QUESTION  vm 

Arisch  upon  the  Egyptian  frontier  as  far  as  Mesopotamia, 
had  submitted  to  Christian  rule. 

But  reaction  speedily  set  in.  Not  later  than  1101  three 
pilgrim  armies,  French,  German,  and  Italian  respectively, 
in  all  300,000  men,  which  Pope  Paschal  had  assembled 
through  the  heralds  whom  he  had  sent  to  preach  the 
Crusade,  perished  in  Asia  Minor. 

The  warning  of  these  catastrophes  remained  unheeded, 
and  when  forty-five  years  later  (1146)  the  news  of  the 
loss  of  Edessa  called  forth  the  third  Crusade,  the  pilgrim 
armies  followed  the  same  route  to  destruction.  The 
summons  had  again  been  issued  and  the  preachers  sent 
forth  by  the  head  of  the  church.  Bernard,  the  most 
noted  and  popular  saint  of  the  age,  at  the  command  of 
Eugenius  III.,  and  by  the  promise  of  unfailing  success, 
kindled  an  enthusiasm  amongst  both  princes  and  peoples, 
far  exceeding  that  which  had  first  been  roused  under 
Urban  II.  Not  only  France,  but  all  Germany  with 
Conrad  III.  at  its  head,  was  drawn  into  the  movement ; 
but  of  the  two  powerful  armies  which  set  forth,  only  a 
feeble  remnant  returned  from  an  expedition  entirely  desti- 
tute of  success.  It  was  calculated  that  Germany  alone 
suffered  the  loss  of  over  a  million  of  her  sons.  When  the 
news  of  Saladin's  victory,  the  defeat  of  the  Christians  at 
Hattin,  and  consequent  loss  of  Jerusalem,  together  with 
the  greater  part  of  Palestine  and  Syria,  reached  the  West, 
all  again  flew  to  arms,  and  her  three  most  powerful 
princes,  Frederick  of  Germany,  Philip  Augustus  of  France, 
and  Kichard  of  England,  set  out  for  the  Holy  Land.  But 
the  death  of  the  emperor,  followed  shortly  by  that  of  his 
son  Frederick,  maimed  and  scattered  the  German  forces, 
which  had  already  been  sadly  reduced  in  numbers  during 
their  passage  through  Asia  Minor.  Philip  Augustus,  after 
a  short  sojourn  at  Acre,  returned  to  France,  and  Kichard, 
in  spite  of  the  victory  which  he  gained,  was  unable  to 
subdue  Jerusalem.  Acre  alone  remained  as  a  fortress  and 
basis  of  operations  for  the  Christians  in  the  East ;  but  it 


viii  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  193 

was  a  hotbed  of  pestilence,  and  continued  for  a  hundred 
years  to  be  the  grave  of  innumerable  pilgrims. 

During  the  years  that  followed,  fresh  summonses  were 
issued  and  fresh  armies  set  in  motion,  but  these  were  iso- 
lated efforts  and  without  result ;  the  largest  expedition, 
upon  which  the  most  brilliant  hopes  were  centred,  the 
Crusade  of  1203,  was  destined,  not  for  Syria,  but  for  Con- 
stantinople, there  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  Latin  empire. 
The  distress  of  the  Syrian  Christians  was  thereby  aggra- 
vated, and  the  final  destruction  of  both  the  Byzantine  and 
Syrian  Kingdoms  rendered  inevitable. 

A  bold  naval  expedition  to  Egypt  in  1217,  under  the 
command  of  the  papal  legate  Pelagius,  began  promisingly 
by  the  subjection  of  Damietta,  hitherto  considered  impreg- 
nable and  regarded  as  the  key  of  Egypt.  Nevertheless 
dissension  and  incapacity  again  led  the  war  to  a  miserable 
and  shameful  termination. 

At  length,  twenty-one  years  later,  the  moment  of 
rescue  seemed  to  have  arrived,  when  the  Christians  might 
enter  into  peaceable  possession  of  the  much-coveted  city. 
By  means  of  negotiation  and  treaty,  and  without  a  stroke 
of  the  sword,  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  obtained  from 
the  Sultan  Kameel  the  cession  of  Jerusalem,  Nazareth, 
arid  other  towns,  with  the  intermediate  country,  as  well 
as  a  ten  years'  truce — objects  for  which  monarchs  at  the 
head  of  powerful  armies  had  for  fifty  years  vainly  striven. 
But  Gregory  IX.,  who  had  previously  excommunicated 
Frederick  for  dilatoriness  in  joining  the  Crusade,  pursued 
the  emperor,  now  become  King  of  Jerusalem,  with  his 
anathema  ;  an  interdict  was  laid  upon  the  holy  places  ;  a 
papal  army  marched  into  Frederick's  hereditary  dominions, 
and  in  Palestine  all  that  lay  in  the  pope's  power  was  done 
to  frustrate  the  carrying  out  of  the  treaty. 

Was  mag  ein  Konig  schaffen, 

Seit  Christen,  Heiden  nnd  Pfaffen, 

Streiten  genug  gegen  ihn, 

Da  verdiirbe  Salomon's  Sinn — 

sang  Freidank,  an  eye-witness,  in  those  days. 


194  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  vni 

From  that  time  forward  Frederick,  during  his  long  con- 
test with  the  pope  and  the  Guelphs,  could  do  but  little  to 
sustain  the  monarchy  in  the  Holy  Land,  which  rapidly 
sank  to  a  mere  empty  title.  Jerusalem,  retaken  and  plun- 
dered by  the  Moslems,  was  again  reduced  to  a  heap  of 
ruins.  Louis  IX.,  the  most  famous  prince  of  his  time, 
and  the  favourite  of  the  church,  invaded  Syria  in  1251, 
with  a  miserably  weak  force,  after  his  reverse  and  im- 
prisonment in  Egypt ;  but  he  also  was  left  entirely  without 
support,  and  was  unable,  within  the  three  years  that  he 
remained  there,  to  accomplish  anything  of  permanent 
importance. 

After  his  time  the  history  of  the  Holy  Land  becomes  a 
mere  series  of  reverses  and  losses  ;  one  town  or  fortress 
after  another  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Moslems,  and  in 
1291  the  Frankish  rule  in  Syria  came  to  a  fearful  and 
bloody  termination  with  the  storming  of  Acre. 

It  has  been  calculated  that  during  the  two  centuries  of 
the  Crusades,  European  Christendom  suffered  a  loss  of 
somewhere  about  six  millions  of  men. 

Thirty  years  before,  the  Latin  empire  in  Constanti- 
nople, that  darling  offspring  of  the  labour  and  travail  of 
the  papacy,  had  perished,  and  the  last  emperor,  Baldwin, 
had  become  a  wanderer  throughout  the  countries  of  West- 
ern Europe,  vainly  soliciting  help  amongst  them.  To 
people  in  those  days  it  seemed  as  if  a  special  curse  lay 
upon  the  undertakings  of  the  popes.  The  events  which 
took  place  between  the  years  1261  and  1291  could  hardly 
create  another  impression. 

A  result  so  pitiful,  so  replete  with  evil  consequences, 
such  a  complete  frustration  of  the  aims  and  expectations 
of  the  whole  of  Christendom,  forces  upon  us  the  question  : 
How  did  this  happen  ?  Who  was  to  blame  ?  How  was 
the  undertaking  conducted  ?  What  manner  of  men  were 
the  pilgrims  and  colonists  who  composed  the  main  body  of 
the  expedition  ? 

The  method  which  the  popes   employed   to  set  the 


vin  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTEEN  QUESTION  195 

Crusades  in  motion  proved  not  only  at  first,  but  for 
hundreds  of  years,  to  be  singularly  effectual.  The  history 
of  the  world,  we  may  say,  has  only  one  other  phenomenon 
of  a  similar  kind  to  show  us.  One  of  the  greatest  and 
most  radical  changes  in  the  life  and  views  of  the  Christian 
world  was  ushered  in  by  it.  For  a  long  time  pre- 
viously, through  the  clerical  invention  of  indulgences, 
the  primitive  institution  of  penance  had  been  widely 
diverted  from  its  original  object.  What  formerly  had 
been  intended  as  a  religious  and  moral  gymnastic  for 
strengthening  the  will  and  weakening  the  dominion  of 
the  senses,  had  since  the  ninth  century  degenerated 
into  a  traffic  in  sins,  and  served  to  enrich  the  church 
with  money  and  lands.  Subsequently  Gregory  VII.  had 
taken  upon  himself  to  grant  a  general  remission  of  sins  to 
the  adherents  of  the  rival  king  Eudolf.  But  it  was  not 
thought  prudent  to  continue  in  this  course.  Urban  II., 
however,  promised  remission  of  all  penances,  as  well  as 
certain  salvation,  to  all  who  would  join  the  Crusade,  allowing 
sins  to  be  expiated  by  confession  and  absolution.  In  this  way 
the  ancient  institution  of  penance  received  its  deathblow, 
not  all  at  once,  but  in  the  natural  course  of  things.  That 
which,  when  the  Crusades  ceased,  was  substituted  for 
it,  was  of  such  a  nature  that,  from  an  ecclesiastical  stand- 
point, the  year  1096  must  be  described  as  an  ill-omened 
epoch,  and  the  action  of  Pope  Urban  as  an  irreparable 
blow  dealt  against  religion.  At  a  later  period,  dogma  was 
made  to  accommodate  itself  to  predominating  custom. 

Men  like  Bernard  and  Innocent  III.  understood  the 
summons  to  the  Crusade  as  an  exhortation  to  conversion 
and  amendment  of  life.  Often  was  the  saying  repeated 
that  whoever  went  forth  as  a  champion  to  fight  for  the  faith 
must  lead  a  life  worthy  of  so  high  a  calling.  In  occa- 
sional instances  the  endeavour  was  really  made,  but  as  a 
general  rule  the  undisciplined  crowds,  which  had  flocked 
together  from  all  quarters,  gave  themselves  up  to  all  kinds  of 
excesses,  and  frequently  brought  ruin  upon  themselves  in 

O  2 


196  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  vnl 

consequence.  Powerful,  indeed,  was  the  attraction  of  these 
holy  wars,  which  in  the  imagination  of  the  time  sanctified 
every  participation  in  them,  even  the  most  humble.  The 
cross,  the  badge  of  the  crusader,  was  a  talisman  for  his 
protection ;  so  long  as  he  carried  it,  even  when  the  vow 
remained  for  years  unfulfilled,  he  was  exempt  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  secular  tribunals ;  no  creditor  could  force 
him  to  pay  his  debts,  or  even  demand  interest  from  him. 

In  the  disordered  condition  of  Germany,  Italy,  and 
France,  each  country  was  overrun  by  swarms  of  criminals, 
murderers,  vagabonds,  adventurers  and  banditti,  outlaws 
and  fugitives  from  justice.  To  all  of  these  an  asylum  was 
now  open  in  which  they  could  not  only  find  personal  secu- 
rity and  immunity  from  punishment,  but  upon  their  return 
home,  honour  and  renown.  Bernard  had  proclaimed  that 
the  very  malefactors,  the  outcasts  of  society,  were  chosen 
by  God  to  take  part  in  His  holy  war,  and  the  new  and 
joyful  message  was  repeated  by  every  succeeding  preacher 
of  the  Crusades.  Otto  of  Freising  saw  in  the  hordes  of 
robbers  who  hastened  to  take  the  cross  an  evident  miracle 
of  God's  grace.  Jacob  de  Vitry  observes  that,  notwith- 
standing that  in  the  Christian  armies  which  left  Acre  for 
Egypt  there  were  many  thieves  and  robbers,  God  gave 
them  victory.  Defeat  followed  quickly  upon  the  steps  of 
victory,  and  we  presently  find  him  remarking  that  the 
vengeance  of  God  had  smitten  the  Christians  on  account  of 
their  crimes  and  robberies.  Menco  does  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  in  the  Netherlands  many  murderers  had  obtained 
pardon  by  taking  the  cross,  and  contemporaries  were  com- 
pelled to  acknowledge  that  not  much  improvement  was  to 
be  traced  in  the  warriors  who  returned. 

Out  of  this  rabble  of  criminals  numbers  settled  from 
time  to  time  upon  the  newly  acquired  territory  in  Syria, 
and  from  such  seed  there  sprang  the  degraded  mongrel  race 
of  the  Pullani,  which,  uniting  in  itself  the  vices  of  both  East 
and  West,  became  the  curse  of  the  land  and  the  ruin  of  the 
Christian  cause.  This  alone  was  sufficient  to  hinder  any 


TIII  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  197 

growth  or  prosperity  in  the  Christian  kingdom  upon  the 
Jordan. 

To  all  this  must  be  added  the  faults  inherent  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Christian  principalities.  These  principalities 
were  examples  of  the  purely  feudal  state  transplanted  from 
its  Franldsh  home.  In  itself  it  was  well  adapted  to  a  country 
surrounded  upon  three  sides  by  aggressive  foes,  and  depend- 
ing for  its  very  existence  upon  constant  preparedness  for 
war,  and  upon  unremitting  discipline  continually  placing  a 
well-trained  body  of  faithful  vassals  at  the  disposal  of  the 
sovereign  prince.  Yet  even  amid  this  dangerously  explosive 
atmosphere  feudalism  produced  its  usual  bitter  fruit ;  self- 
seeking  dissensions,  the  want  of  a  spirit  of  co-operation  in 
undertakings  in  which  unanimity  was  indispensable,  and 
even  open  mutual  hostility,  were  more  frequent  than  any 
self-sacrificing  devotion  to  the  common  good.  During  its 
brief  existence  the  kingdom  thrice  suffered  from  the  mino- 
rity of  its  king  in  the  persons  of  Baldwin  III.,  IV.,  and  V., 
aggravated  by  disputes  about  the  regency ;  and  as  crown 
and  fief  descended  through  the  female  line  also,  the  fate  of 
the  country  at  one  time  depended  upon  the  caprices  of  a 
young  woman. 

In  a  kingdom  which,  like  this,  owed  its  origin  to  the 
popes,  it  was  natural  that  the  church  with  her  hierarchical 
pretensions  should  stand  on  a  level  with  the  feudal  state. 
The  newly  appointed  Latin  patriarchs  considered  the 
kings  as  their  vassals,  and  as  a  matter  of  course  carried 
on  against  them  the  war  of  hierarchical  against  secular 
power,  with  the  traditional  weapons  of  ban  and  interdict. 

The  Latin  bishops,  superfluous  in  number,  and  endowed 
with  baronial  rights,  were  able  whenever  they  pleased  to 
furnish  mercenaries,  in  most  cases  an  unruly  contingent, 
to  the  army  in  the  field.  These  troops  disbanded  themselves 
at  once  upon  the  lapse  of  the  time  of  service  agreed  upon. 
The  kingdom  was  altogether  overrun  by  the  clergy.  The 
popes  had  taken  pains  by  the  offer  of  substantial  privileges 
to  induce  a  large  number  of  ecclesiastics  to  take  part  in  the 


198  THE  OKIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  vm 

march  of  the  army  and  in  the  occupation  of  Syria.  The 
consequence  was  that  in  a  very  short  time  every  form  of 
conflict  between  the  hierarchy  and  the  laity  with  which  the 
length  and  breadth  of  Europe  was  then  afflicted  raged  within 
the  narrow  borders  of  this  kingdom.  The  churches,  hand- 
somely endowed  from  the  first,  soon  became  the  richest 
landed  proprietors,  the  bishops  and  monastic  orders  being 
continually  enabled  to  add  to  their  territories  through 
the  sums  of  money  sent  to  them  from  Europe.  This 
wealthy  body  of  clergy  and  monks,  severed  by  descent,  by 
language,  and  now,  since  the  schism  of  the  churches,  by 
religion,  from  the  Syrian  Christians,  were  despised  for  their 
immorality,  but  feared  on  account  of  their  power.  The 
breach  between  the  Western  immigrants  and  the  old  Syrian 
colonies  became  year  by  year  wider. 

The  behaviour  of  the  popes  at  this  time  with  regard  to 
the  Eastern  Church  and  the  Latin  kingdom  was  pregnant 
with  momentous  and  decisive  consequences. 

The  weal  or  woe  of  the  Christian  government  in  Syria 
was  intimately  bound  up  with  the  Byzantine  Empire.  The 
very  existence  of  the  little  kingdom  ultimately  depended, 
it  may  be  said,  on  the  attitude  assumed  towards  it  in  Con- 
stantinople. The  religious  question  was  of  predominant 
importance.  The  numerous  Christian  population  of  Syria, 
descended  from  the  old  subjects  of  the  empire,  owned 
allegiance  in  ecclesiastical  affairs  to  the  Greek  Church. 
Whether  the  new  arrivals  and  masters  from  the  West  would 
be  regarded  by  the  Syrians  as  fellow-Christians,  or  treated 
as  heretics  and  schismatics,  depended  entirely  upon  the 
attitude  assumed  by  Greeks  and  Latins  towards  one  another 
in  Constantinople.  The  number  of  Latin  clergy,  monks, 
and  laity  upon  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus  was  consider- 
able ;  if  ecclesiastical  matters  there  came  to  all  open  sepa- 
ration and  quarrel,  the  stability  of  the  newly  founded 
Frankish  principalities  would  be  undermined. 

When  the  era  of  the  Crusades  began,  the  relation  of  the 
two  churches  to  one  another  was  still  fluctuating  and  ill- 


vni  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  199 

defined.  At  that  time  and  even  throughout  the  course  of 
the  twelfth  century  the  Latins  had  no  scruple  in  taking 
part  in  the  services  of  the  Greek  Church.  No  impediment 
was  placed  in  the  way  of  marriage  between  Latins  and 
Greeks.  Simultaneously  with  the  cry  for  the  liberation  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre  arose  another  :  '  Let  us  succour  our 
brethren  the  Christians  of  the  East ! '  The  Western  nations 
as  yet  knew  nothing  of  the  heresy  of  the  Eastern  Church. 
No  great  council  had  as  yet  by  its  anathemas  raised  a  wall 
of  separation  between  East  and  West.  Even  theologians 
were  constrained  to  acknowledge  that  the  Greeks  had  re- 
mained truer  to  their  traditions  than  the  Latins  to  theirs. 
The  dogmatic  difference  on  the  question  of  the  double  pro- 
cession of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  addition  to  the  article  of 
the  Creed  might,  with  a  little  good  will  upon  both  sides,  have 
been  easily  disposed  of;  but  behind  it  stood  the  Eoman 
claim  of  submission  to  papal  authority  in  the  guise  which 
that  demand  had  first  assumed  under  Nicolas  I.  and  Gregory 
VII.  The  series  of  forgeries  and  fictions  upon  which  the 
popes  founded  their  recent  claims  to  unlimited  and  uni- 
versal supremacy  over  things  spiritual  and  temporal — the 
foundation  stones  upon  which  the  system  of  Gregory  and 
Innocent  was  erected — remained  wholly  unknown  to  the 
Byzantines,  whose  traditions  and  ecclesiastical  law-books 
only  bore  witness  to  the  old  church  system,  recognising  in 
the  Roman  bishop  the  first  of  the  five  patriarchs ;  a  right 
of  precedence  without  authority. 

Then  the  conquest  of  Constantinople  took  place,  and 
was  followed  by  the  erection  of  a  Latin  empire,  and  Inno- 
cent III. ,  however  sharply  he  had  condemned  the  perversion 
of  the  Crusade  from  its  first  destination,  resolved  to  support 
the  usurpation  and  to  make  use  of  the  sudden  and  violent 
establishment  of  Latin  rule  as  an  instrument  for  consoli- 
dating his  own  power  and  for  reducing  the  Eastern  Church 
into  the  same  relation  of  servitude  to  Rome  to  which  for 
the  last  150  years  the  churches  of  the  West  had  voluntarily 
resigned  themselves.  Ecclesiastics  seeking  for  place,  and 


200  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  vm 

greedy  of  gain,  now  flocked  from  the  West  to  the  Bosphorus, 
and  spread  themselves  through  the  Balkan  Peninsula  and 
Greece.  To  the  Greeks  they  behaved  with  the  double  arro- 
gance of  exacting  conquerors  and  of  intolerant  orthodox 
bigots.  Every  peculiarity  in  the  Greek  Liturgy  was  looked 
upon  with  suspicion,  and  thus  was  hateful  and  repulsive  to 
them ;  and  there  was  no  lack  of  persecution,  imprisonment, 
and  even  capital  punishment  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
rebellious  Greek  clergy.  The  latter  soon  added  contempt  to 
hatred  for  their  oppressors.  The  Latins — as  even  Humbert, 
the  General  of  the  Dominican  Order,  allows  in  his  memorial 
to  the  pope — were,  in  respect  to  morals,  far  worse  than  the 
Greeks.  Ecclesiastical  relations  now  grew  thoroughly 
hostile ;  the  whole  body  of  Greek  clergy,  and  under  their  in- 
fluence the  laity,  began  to  regard  the  Western  nations  in 
the  light  of  heretics,  and  their  popes  and  bishops  as  tyrants 
and  persecutors  of  the  church.  To  the  l  Submit  yourselves ' 
of  the  Latins  the  Greeks  retorted  with  'Be  converted.' 
The  nationality  of  the  Greeks  which  had  been  jeopardised 
was  thereby  saved,  for  clergy  and  people  combined  in  stead- 
fast and  general  resistance,  and  by  the  end  of  fifty  years 
the  Latin  yoke  was  once  more  shaken  off.  But  foremost 
amongst  the  ranks  of  those  who  were  to  blame  for  the  ruin 
of  the  Christian  colonists  and  their  kingdom  in  the  Holy 
Land  stands  the  figure  of  Pope  Innocent.  For  the  Christians 
belonging  to  the  Syrian  and  Byzantine  Church  formed  the 
bulk  of  the  population  ;  according  to  Burkard,  in  the  year 
1280  the  proportion  of  Christians  to  Mohammedans  in  Syria 
was  still  thirty  to  one,  notwithstanding  that  by  that  time 
most  of  the  Franks  had  been  destroyed  or  had  left  the 
country.  These  easily  submitted  to  the  Moslem  rule,  deem- 
ing it  on  the  whole  preferable  to  Frankish  tyranny  with  its 
double  yoke,  the  feudal  and  the  spiritual. 

In  those  days  it  would  seem  a  matter  of  course  that 
the  papal  chair  should  assume  the  supreme  direction  and 
organisation  of  the  Crusades ;  none  other  than  the  original 
author  could  carry  the  work  through  to  its  end.  For  the 


vni  THE   ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  201 

German  emperors,  now  daily  becoming  weaker  in  their 
own  land,  frequently,  too,  at  enmity  with  and  under  the 
ban  of  the  church,  and  hemmed  in  by  the  snares  of 
Italian  policy,  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  take  the  lead. 
Their  imperial  dignity,  as  formerly  and  still  nominally 
constituted,  might  have  assigned  the  distinction  of  leader- 
ship to  them,  seeing  that  according  to  papal  theory  the 
emperor  should  be .  the  protector  of  the  church  and  the 
natural  commander-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  Christendom 
against  the  unbeliever.  Any  serious  attempt,  however,  to 
exercise  the  powers  inherent  in  such  a  position  would  on 
all  sides  have  met  with  opposition  and  resistance — before 
all  from  the  popes  themselves,  who  would  have  perceived 
in  it  an  assumption  of  the  authority  which  they  claimed 
for  themselves  alone.  For  it  was  the  popes  who  had,  as  it 
were,  sucked  the  lifeblood  from  the  empire,  shorn  it  of  its 
highest  prerogatives,  or  made  any  exercise  of  them  impos- 
sible. 

In  1274  Humbert  de  Eomans  aptly  puts  the  question, 
'  Who  could  undertake  the  guidance  of  Eastern  affairs  ? ' 
and  answers  it,  '  None  but  the  pope.'  Yet  even  by  that 
time,  180  years  full  of  disaster,  of  vain  endeavour,  and 
wasted  sacrifice,  showed  that  this  partly  actual,  partly 
imaginary  leadership  of  the  Christians  in  the  Holy  Land 
had  led  to  the  brink  of  an  abyss  into  which  but  a  few  years 
later  they  were  destined  to  sink  for  ever. 

What  above  all  was  wanting  in  Borne  was  a  permanent 
body  of  officials  charged  with  administering  the  affairs  of 
the  East  according  to  fixed  principles.  Not  one  of  the 
popes  did  anything  towards  this  object,  nor  was  a  congre- 
gation of  cardinals  called  together  to  consider  the  matter. 
The  pope  on  his  part  possessed  no  regular  representative 
to  report  to  him  from  the  East,  nor  had  the  Eastern  king- 
dom any  resident  or  envoy  at  the  court  of  Kome.  The 
poverty  of  the  kings,  and  the  universal  conviction  and 
experience  that  nothing  could  be  obtained  from  the  Curia 
without  great  pecuniary  sacrifices,  sufficed  to  render  any 


202  THE  ORiaiN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  vni 

regular  business  intercourse  impossible.  It  happened,  be- 
sides, that  just  at  the  moment  of  the  most  important  crisis 
in  the  East,  the  Curia  was  itself  unsettled  and  occupied  in 
wandering  from  town  to  town.  Everything  that  the  popes 
undertook  for  this  most  costly  and  hard-won  acquisition  of 
Christendom,  was  carried  out  by  fits  and  starts,  without 
plan  or  concert,  chiefly  through  the  fortuitous  assistance  of 
individuals.  The  papal  decrees  teem  with  general  admo- 
nitions, with  exhortations  to  particular  princes  and  nobles 
to  take  part  in  and  promote  the  cause,  and  to  give  assist- 
ance in  money,  and  they  comprise  moreover  a  heap  of 
decisions  upon  petty  details  touching  the  sacristy,  the 
cloister,  clerical  squabbles,  questions  of  precedence,  and  so 
forth.  But  to  the  graver  matters  connected  with  the 
East,  and  when  speedy  help  was  needed,  the  Curia  turned 
a  deaf  ear. 

So  we  learn  from  Odo  de  Deuil,  a  monk  of  St.  Denis, 
that  the  Germans  on  their  return  from  Constantinople  had 
lost  30,000  of  their  number  simply  from  starvation  caused 
by  the  helpless  crowd  which  hung  about  them.  The  pope 
had  indeed  gone  so  far  as  to  forbid  them  to  take  hounds 
and  falcons,  and  had  even  prescribed  to  the  knights  the 
form  of  their  clothing  and  arms, — but  would  to  God,  ex- 
claims Odo,  that  the  holy  pontiff  had  also  published  direc- 
tions for  the  people  that  the  weakly  should  be  ordered  to 
their  homes,  and  that  to  every  strong  man  should  be  given 
a  sword  instead  of  a  wallet,  and  a  bow  instead  of  a  staff. 
The  eloquent  preacher  of  the  Crusades,  and  zealous  advo- 
cate for  the  Christians  on  the  Jordan,  Cardinal  James  de 
Vitry,  wrote  that  when  (under  Honorius  III.)  he  arrived  at 
the  Curia  he  found  much  that  disappointed  him  ;  every  one 
was  so  exclusively  absorbed  in  politics,  and  immersed  in 
lawsuits  and  litigious  questions,  that  to  spiritual  affairs — 
and  to  this  category  the  business  of  the  Crusades  belonged — 
none  would  give  the  slightest  heed. 

It  was  admitted  upon  all  sides  by  those  who  knew 
anything  of  affairs  in  the  East,  that  the  presence  of  a 


YIII  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  203 

fleet,  however  small,  was  indispensable  for  retaining  posses- 
sion of  the  Holy  Land.  The  papal  court  alone  refused  to 
recognise  this  necessity,  and  papal  policy,  having  first 
reduced  the  Kingdom  of  Sicily  to  a  state  of  anarchy,  and 
then  taken  advantage  of  its  consequent  dissensions  to  render 
it  utterly  powerless,  negatived  every  attempt  to  organise  a 
fleet  destined  for  service  in  the  East. 

To  the  officials  of  the  Curia  the  Christian  colonies  in 
the  East  had  long  since  become  a  weariness ;  they  brought 
little  return,  and  were  constantly  needing  assistance  in 
money,  which  Eome,  particularly  since  the  struggle  with 
the  Hohenstaufens,  was  not  in  a  position  to  afford.  Inno- 
cent III.  indeed  had  fitted  out  a  ship  at  his  own  expense ; 
but  not  long  after  his  time  the  popes  appropriated  the  funds 
collected  for  the  Crusade  to  their  own  wants,  or  to  the  re- 
muneration of  armies  raised  by  the  promise  of  indulgences 
or  the  hope  of  booty,  and  destined  to  operate  both  in 
Germany  and  Italy  for  the  overthrow  of  the  imperial 
house.  The  vows  of  pilgrims  on  the  way  to  Syria,  where 
they  yet  hoped  to  make  an  effort  for  the  recovery  of  the 
holy  places,  were  converted  into  promises  of  participation 
in  a  crusade  against  the  Hohenstaufens,  or  into  payment 
of  a  sum  of  money  towards  it.  Numbers  had  begun 
already  to  uncross  (decroiser)  themselves,  that  is  to  say,  to 
be  released  from  their  Palestine  vow  by  the  payment 
of  a  sum  of  money.  A  period  of  general  discouragement 
and  despair  set  in,  of  which  the  memoirs  of  the  time  furnish 
many  proofs  in  the  shape  of  stern  comments  alternating 
with  grievous  reproaches  against  the  avarice,  selfishness, 
and  faithless  policy  of  the  Eoman  see. 

The  discovery  made  by  Urban  II.  and  his  successors, 
that  the  promise  of  spiritual  benefits  and  favours  sufficed 
to  assemble  a  valiant  army  and  to  kindle  the  ardour 
for  war  and  conquest,  soon  bore  fruit  in  the  announce- 
ment of  fresh  crusades,  of  which  the  object  was  neither 
Syria  nor  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  None  controverted  the 
assertion  of  the  Curia,  that  a  war  carried  on.  in  the 


204  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  Tin 

service  of  the  church  or  of  the  popes  was  as  meritorious 
in  those  who  took  part  in  it  as  fighting  in  the  Holy  Land. 
The  theory  and  practice  of  religious  warfare  in  the  service  of 
the  popes  rapidly  developed.  An  undertaking  only  needed  to 
be  declared  a  matter  of  faith  (negotium  fidei) ,  or  a  prince 
pronounced  heretical  or  an  enemy  of  the  church,  for  the  head 
of  the  church  to  call  a  crusade,  in  which  whosoever  should 
take  part  would  enjoy  the  same  privileges  and  assurance 
of  salvation  as  the  combatants  for  the  Holy  Land.  When 
Innocent  III.  proclaimed  a  crusade  against  Languedoc  and 
the  adjacent  provinces  because  many  of  the  inhabitants 
clung  to  the  Catharist  and  Waldensian  doctrines,  no  voice 
of  disapprobation  or  opposition  was  raised  from  any  quarter. 
The  horrors  of  that  campaign  surpassed  anything  hitherto 
seen  in  the  West,  but  we  know  of  one  man  only,  the 
Frenchman  William  Clerc  de  Normandie,  who  dared  to 
assert  that  the  Albigensian  war  was  the  most  shameful 
event  of  the  time. 

In  like  manner  in  1232  the  Frisian  house  of  Ste- 
dinger  was  extirpated  by  a  crusade  summoned  against 
it  by  Gregory  IX.  on  the  plea  of  heresy,  but  in  reality 
because  it  had  refused  to  pay  tithes  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Bremen.  A  few  years  later  the  same  pope  caused  a  crusade 
to  be  preached  against  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  From 
1250  to  1265  the  popes  outdid  their  predecessors  in  the 
proclamation  of  religious  wars :  the  Lombards  were  to  be 
extirpated  as  heretics ;  the  last  of  the  Hohenstaufens,  the 
German  Emperor  Conrad  IV.  and  his  brother  King  Manfred, 
were  overthrown  by  the  crusading  armies ;  whilst  at  the  same 
time  Kome  declared  war  against  Duke  Boleslaus  of  Liegnitz 
because  he  had  imprisoned  a  bishop.  Clement  IV.  ordered 
a  crusade  against  the  English  barons  because  they  defended 
their  Magna  Charta  against  his  benefactor  and  protege 
Henry  III.,  and  he  proposed  also  that  the  Northern 
heathens,  the  yet  unconverted  Lithuanian  and  Finnish 
tribes,  should  be  compelled  by  the  sword  to  receive 
baptism. 


vnr  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  205 

Century  after  century  had  many  a  heathen  people  been 
rapidly  and  easily  won  over  to  the  church  by  the  gentle 
means  of  preaching  and  tender  persuasion ;  thus  had  it 
been  with  Germans  and  Slavonians,  and  thus  had  the  Greco- 
Byzantine  Church  converted  the  whole  of  Eussia.  The 
messengers  of  the  faith  had  encountered  as  a  rule  but 
little  opposition,  and  that  little  had  been  easily  over- 
come. Only  when  they  appeared  as  tools  of  a  foreign  con- 
queror, and  when  the  spread  of  Christianity  went  hand 
in  hand  with  political  subjection,  were  people  wont  to 
offer  any  permanent  resistance.  The  conversion  of  the 
Saxons  may  be  called  a  turning  point  in  missionary  his- 
tory, for  it  was  the  first  of  the  conversions  by  fire  and  sword 
introduced  by  Charles  the  Great, which  at  first  were  merely 
consented  to  but  afterwards  were  prescribed  by  the  popes. 

Meanwhile,  throughout  the  middle  ages,  theologians 
continued  to  uphold  the  old  doctrine  that  no  unbaptized 
person,  whether  Pagan,  Jew,  or  Mohammedan,  ought  to  be 
compelled  to  receive  baptism.  But  popes  and  bishops  cared 
little  for  this;  voluntary  missionaries,  of  whom  formerly 
there  had  been  so  many,  were  scarcely  to  be  found  after  the 
eleventh  century ;  it  was  too  arduous  an  undertaking  to 
learn  the  speech  of  these  nations,  and  too  dangerous  to 
sojourn  defenceless  among  them.  So  when  the  oracle  of 
his  time,  Saint  Bernard,  declared  that  the  Northern  Chris- 
tians instead  of  proceeding  on  their  way  to  the  Holy  Land 
should  make  an  onslaught  upon  the  Wendish  nations,  and 
uproot  them  '  or  convert  them — ant  delendas  penitus  ant 
convertendas  nationes  illas — his  dictum  brought  fatal  and 
far-reaching  consequences.  Bernard,  in  fact,  was  a  child  of 
his  time,  trained  uponHildebrand's  system,  a  system  which 
bore  fruit  after  its  kind.  It  was  the  self-same  spirit  which 
moved  Innocent  III.  to  inform  the  400  bishops  assembled 
at  the  Lateran  Council  that  the  papal  authority  delegated 
to  them  was  a  deadly  weapon  of  which  they  should  avail 
themselves  for  the  extirpation  of  the  ungodly.  The  exhorta- 
tion was  readily  received  and  applied,  and  religious  warfare, 


206  THE  OEIGIN  OF  THE  EASTEEN  QUESTION  vin 

with  the  devastation  and  cruelty,  the  contempt  and  waste 
of  human  life,  which  especially  mark  it,  may  be  regarded  as 
having  signalised  the  next  four  or  five  centuries.  Ubi  soli- 
tudinem  faciunt,  fidem  appellant,  might  soon  afterwards  be 
quoted,  when  many  a  district  had  been  depopulated  rather 
than  converted  by  endless  crusades ;  whilst  amongst  those 
baptized  under  terrorism  and  compulsion,  and  forced  into 
life-long  hypocrisy,  heathenism  retained  its  held  down  into 
the  sixteenth  century. 

If  in  those  days  the  Germans  in  the  North  may  be  said 
to  have  fought  under  the  banner  of  the  Cross  more  for  the 
sake  of  widening  their  own  dominions  and  spreading  their 
nationality  than  anything  else,  it  may  also  be  affirmed  that 
whilst  the  French,  outstripping  other  nations  in  this  respect, 
were  invariably  foremost  as  the  champions  of  the  papacy 
and  in  fighting  Eome's  battles,  it  was  always  in  such  a 
way  as  to  consolidate  the  power  of  the  royal  house  of  France, 
and  to  strengthen  the  kingdom,  in  spite  of  the  heavy  sacri- 
fices in  life  and  wealth  which  the  nation  was  forced  to  make 
in  support  of  the  closely  combined  policy  of  the  throne 
and  the  papacy. 

A  German  priest  in  the  year  1288  descants,  not  without 
expressions  of  surprise,  upon  the  readiness  with  which  the 
people  of  Gaul  allowed  themselves  to  be  made  use  of  for 
carrying  on  the  papal  wars,  and  expended  their  best  blood 
upon  the  battlefields  of  Europe  and  Asia  in  the  interests  of 
the  Eoman  Curia.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  Frenchmen, 
he  exclaims,  have  forfeited  their  lives  in  recent  times  by 
hunger,  pestilence,  and  the  sword  in  Greece,  Sicily,  Cala- 
bria, Apulia,  in  Eomagna,  Catalonia,  Aragon,  and  Hungary  ; 
by  sea  as  well  as  by  land.  French  popes,  more  than  any 
others,  were  lavish  of  the  lives  of  their  countrymen, 
especially  Martin  IV.  (then  lately  dead),  who,  out  of  zeal 
for  his  people,  threw  the  whole  church  into  confusion, 
desiring  to  govern  the  whole  world  in  French  fashion- 
that  is,  according  to  the  wishes  and  interests  of  the 
French — but  who,  in  point  of  fact,  did  more  harm  to  both 


vni  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  207 

nation  and  dynasty  than  he  would,  perhaps,  have  done  by 
persecution.2 

It  is  apparent  enough  now,  that  the  numerous  crusades 
and  religious  wars  in  the  North-East,  in  the  South,  and  in 
the  centre  of  Europe,  sapped  the  strength  of  the  Christian 
kingdom  in  Asia,  which  was  incompetent  to  maintain  or 
protect  itself.  When  service  in  these  wars,  on  either  side 
of  the  sea,  brought  equal  assurance  of  indulgence  and 
salvation,  nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  the  majority 
should  select  the  nearer,  less  dangerous,  and  less  toilsome 
alternative,  with  a  prospect  at  the  same  time  of  richer 
booty.  That  Jerusalem  was  not  retaken  after  Saladin's 
death,  in  spite  of  the  dissensions  and  weakness  among  the 
Moslems,  was  chiefly  owing  to  the  Albigensian  war,  which 
offered  to  the  French  nobles  an  easier  and  more  lucrative 
employment  for  their  arms.  A  similar  cause,  the  prosecu- 
tion of  papal  wars,  afterwards  deprived  King  Louis  of  the 
succour  necessary  for  him  in  Palestine,  and  obliged  him  to 
return  home  without  having  achieved  any  result. 

The  fact  could  no  longer  be  concealed  by  the  close  of 
the  thirteenth  century  that  the  Crusades  had  ended  in  the 
complete  discomfiture  of  Christendom.  The  princes  and 
people  of  Europe,  both  clergy  and  laity,  had  been  van- 
quished by  their  persistent  and  deadly  enemy  Islam.  It 
has  been  observed  that  only  one  trial  by  ordeal  of  battle 
took  place  in  the  Frankish  camp  in  Syria.  But  the  series  of 
Crusades,  extending  over  200  years,  was  for  both  sides  one 
great  ordeal.  The  Christians  were  the  challengers  and  the 
aggressors,  and  they  were  defeated.  Yet  more  :  they  laid  the 
foundation  at  the  same  time  of  fresh  losses  in  the  future, 
and  they  paved  the  way  for  a  yet  worse  foe  to  penetrate 
into  the  very  heart  of  Europe. 

The  final  verdict  upon  the  Crusades  can  hardly  be 
doubtful  after  what  has  been  said.  The  goal  towards  which 
the  Western  world  persistently  and  unanimously  strove 
was  not,  as  was  supposed  in  the  last  century,  a  phantom 

2  See  the  Notitia  sceculi  in  Karajan,  History  of  the  Council  of  Lyons. 


208  THE   OBIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  vin 

pursued  in  blind  enthusiasm.  The  task  of  winning  back 
the  Asiatic  countries  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean,  and 
of  hindering  the  advance  of  an  irreconcileable  and  aggres- 
sive foe,  was  inexorably  imposed  on  Christian  Europe  at 
that  time,  though  it  was  recognised  by  few.  But  the  great 
undertaking  was  badly  conducted  from  the  beginning ;  the 
motives  assigned  for  it,  and  the  means  and  manner  of 
preparation,  all  carried  in  themselves  germs  of  dissolution 
and  suicidal  poison.  The  perverted  theory  of  penance  and 
indulgence  adopted  in  those  days  by  the  church  weighed 
like  a  mountain  on  the  Frankish  armies  and  their  Syrian 
colonies. 

The  two  dogmas  which  served  as  levers  in  the  hands  of 
the  church — the  theory  of  penance  and  indulgences  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  right' of  the  pope  to  direct  the  world 
— sufficed  to  set  multitudes  in  motion  towards  Asia,  and 
to  enable  them  when  there  to  win  battles  ;  but  they  were 
powerless  to  instil  into  the  hearts  of  princes  and  people 
those  virtues  which  alone  could  ensure  permanent  posses- 
sion of  that  which  had  been  won  in  the  heat  of  contest ; 
such  qualities  as  moderation  and  discipline,  self-abnegation 
and  sacrifice,  unanimous  and  steadfast  striving  after  a 
common  and  clearly  recognised  end. 

The  downfall  of  the  Christian  kingdom  in  Asia  was 
a  just  retribution  for  the  vices  and  crimes  of  the  Chris- 
tians. This  was  said  by  contemporaries,  and  the  historian 
may  add  that  it  was  the  inevitable  consequence  of  the  mis- 
takes committed  by  the  heads  of  the  movement,  and  of  the 
ruin  and  discord  introduced  into  Europe  by  the  struggle 
between  the  hierarchy  and  the  secular  states.  In  the  very 
years  when  the  Christian  occupation  of  Syria  was  at  its 
last  gasp,  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  there  arose 
in  the  interior  of  Asia  Minor  the  still  small  and  name- 
less Turkish  race  of  the  Osmanli,  destined  first  to  inherit 
the  decaying  power  of  the  Seljukian  Turks,  and  afterwards 
to  destroy  and  supplant  the  Byzantine  Empire.  It  was 
long  before  the  Christian  governments  of  the  West  became 


Tin  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  209 

aware  how  formidable  an  opponent  had  grown  up  against 
them  in  these  new  supporters  of  Islam.  They  themselves 
had,  indeed,  prepared  the  way  for  them,  when  by  military 
conquest  and  devastation,  as  well  as  by  religious  dissension, 
they  had  broken  down  the  Byzantine  Empire,  and  had  de- 
stroyed the  power  of  the  bulwark  of  Christendom.  Chris- 
tian Europe  calmly  allowed  the  city,  which  above  all  others 
conferred  upon  its  possessor  the  position  and  means  of 
erecting  a  universal  monarchy,  to  pass  into  the  hands  of 
this  Ottoman  people.  With  the  year  1453  closes  the  second 
act  of  one  of  the  great  dramas  of  the  world.  Its  end  was 
even  more  dishonourable  to  Christendom  than  that  of  the 
first  act,  which  closed  in  1291.  The  end  of  the  third  act 
is  now  drawing  near — very  near ;  will  the  issue  be  more 
conducive  to  the  honour,  security,  and  peace  of  Christian 
Europe  ?  Will  it  bear  more  favourable  testimony  to  the 
foresight  and  pure-mindedness  of  the  princes  and  states- 
men who  guide  our  destiny  ?  None  amongst  us  can  well 
venture  to  answer  this  question  without  hesitation.  We 
all  oscillate  betwixt  fears  and  hopes. 


210  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  IT 


IX 

THE    JEWS    IN   EUROPE1 

THE  Academy  celebrates  to-day,  by  anticipation,  the  birthday 
of  its  royal  master  and  honoured  patron.  A  festival  of  this 
kind  appeals  to  the  simplest,  purest,  most  elevating  feelings 
of  the  human  heart — love,  reverence,  gratitude.  It  is  an 
occasion  besides  upon  which  we  feel  ourselves  drawn  into 
immediate  relation  with  the  monarch  as  he  surveys  with 
thoughtful  and  critical  eye  the  affairs  of  his  people,  weigh- 
ing the  condition  of  Germany  and  the  important  events  of 
the  day,  as  well  as  their  bearing  upon  the  future.  Our 
thoughts  turn  involuntarily  towards  the  latest  occurrences 
and  towards  the  serious  problems  which  imperatively 
clamour  for  solution. 

Amongst  these,  by  no  means  the  least  is  the  Semitic 
question  which  has  now  for  some  years  agitated  Germany. 
Party  feeling  runs  high  upon  the  subject,  and  just  as  in  the 
thirteenth  century  were  heard  the  cries  of  Guelph  and 
Ghibelline,  Hie  Welf,  Hie  Waibling,  so  there  re-echoes  to- 
day throughout  the  German  provinces  the  rallying  cry  of 
the  Semite  and  the  Semite's  friends  against  the  anti-Semite. 
We  have  been  not  a  little  surprised  to  observe  that  this  feel- 
ing is  hottest  in  the  metropolis  of  the  empire,  and  amongst 
those  too  who  belong  to  the  aristocracy  of  intellect.  If 
Southern  Germany  also  has  hitherto  not  been  drawn  into 
the  movement  to  the  same  extent  as  the  North,  yet  the 
inciting  motives  are  not  without  force  even  in  our  own 
neighbourhood.  Knowledge  in  our  time  can  no  longer 
afford  to  hold  herself  aloof,  as  formerly,  from  the  region  of 

1  Address  delivered  at  the  festal  meeting  of  the  Academy  of  Munich, 
July  25, 1881. 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUBOPE  211 

practical  life.  On  the  contrary  she  has  the  strongest 
reasons  for  devoting  her  best  energies  to  the  solution  of 
the  problems  which  beset  our  time  and  nation,  so  that  she 
may  take  her  part  reciprocally  in  all  those  influences  which 
contribute  to  enlighten  and  to  elevate  society. 

Let  then  one  offering  which  our  Academy  makes  upon 
this  occasion  to  its  royal  patron  take  the  form  of  an  endea- 
vour to  show  how  the  skein  was  gradually  twisted  which 
none  at  the  present  day  can  hope  to  unravel,  and  how 
History,  the  guide  of  life,  points  to  her  mirror  in  which 
past  errors  are  reflected  as  warnings  against  fresh  mistakes 
which  may  be  impending. 

The  fate  of  the  Jewish  people  is  perhaps  the  most 
moving  drama  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

Just  as  the  Greek  tragedians  were  wont  to  represent 
"Tfipis,  the  insolent  abuse  of  power,  as  the  darkest  destiny 
which  doomed  mankind  to  destruction,  so  in  the  fate  of 
this  people  we  may  be  said  to  be  confronted  by  a  r"T/3pi$  of 
the  middle  ages,  weighing  upon  it  like  a  curse — a  "T^pis 
compounded  of  religious  fanaticism,  low  avarice,  and  in- 
stinctive race  hatred.  It  was  produced  by  a  moral  and 
intellectual  defect  equally  prevalent  for  many  centuries 
amongst  the  rulers  of  mankind  and  amongst  the  masses, 
and  still  widely  exists,  although  custom,  fear,  and  public 
opinion  have  now  outwardly  suppressed  it.  This  defect 
was  and  is,  in  a  word,  a  want  of  the  sense  of  justice. 

We  are  well  acquainted  with  these  powers  and  their 
instruments,  which  even  now  repeat,  under  every  imagin- 
able form  and  disguise,  one  and  the  same  thought  :  *  We 
alone  are  in  possession  of  the  full  saving  truth,  and  there- 
fore everything  which  may  be  necessary  or  serviceable 
in  spreading  or  enforcing  this  truth  must  be  conceded 
to  us.'  Where  this  principle  rules,  as  it  did  for  the 
thousand  years  from  500  to  1500,  and  where  it  is  repre- 
sented as  in  these  days  by  some  who  still  cling  to  the  views 
of  the  middle  ages,  the  bare  idea  of  justice  must  appear 

p   2 


212  THE   JEWS  IN  EUROPE  ix 

a  damnable  delusion — of  that  justice  at  least  which  is  able 
to  estimate  man  according  to  his  education,  tendencies,  and 
prejudices,  to  penetrate  into  the  circle  of  his  thoughts  and 
sympathies,  to  judge  him  and  acquit  him  accordingly,  to 
tolerate  his  deviations  from  our  own  line  of  thought,  belief, 
and  action,  and  to  respect  his  right  of  independent  action 
The  Christian  religion  implies  this  justice  in  the  command- 
ment that  a  man  should  love  his  neighbour  as  himself; 
yet  this  highest  commandment  has  been  misunderstood, 
trampled  upon,  ignored,  to  an  almost  infinite  extent,  by 
rulers  and  by  the  masses,  by  teachers  and  pupils  by 
learned  and  ignorant  alike. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  deal  with  the  present  condition 
of  these  matters. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  perceive  that  a  nation  stands  high 
as  a  pillar  of  civilisation  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
her  citizens  who  are  imbued  with  this  high  sense  of  justice, 
and  according  to  the  adequacy  of  the  national  institutions 
for  the  protection  and  encouragement  of  it.  Wherever 
human  intercourse  touches  upon  the  province  of  religion, 
men  are  apt  to  call  the  want  of  the  virtue  under  discussion 
fanaticism ;  and  there  have  been  times  when  even  the  best 
men,  men  of  the  noblest  character,  have  thought  and  acted 
fanatically,  so  that  it  is  all  the  more  necessary  for  us  who 
pronounce  the  verdict  of  history  to  mete  out  that  justice  to 
those  who  themselves  disowned  it  in  their  own  lifetime  and 
denied  it  to  their  fellow-creatures. 

The  Jews,  even  before  the  destruction  of  their  city  and 
of  their  national  sanctuary,  were  the  most  widely  dispersed 
of  all  nations.  Strabo  remarks  that  not  a  spot  in  the  world 
could  be  found  which  did  not  afford  shelter  to  Jews  and 
which  was  not  in  their  power ;  and  the  world  which  he  re- 
ferred to  extended  beyond  the  regions  of  the  Mediterranean 
and  included  the  countries  of  Asia,  as  far  as  the  Perso- 
Parthian  Empire.  By  innumerable  pathways,  by  half 
voluntary,  half  compulsory  colonisation,  by  wars  and  slave 
traffic,  and  little  by  little  by  their  growing  spirit  of  com- 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  213 

mercial  enterprise,  the  Jews  of  the  dispersion  had  become 
a  community  especially  numerous  in  the  maritime  towns, 
a  Greek-speaking  community  for  the  most  part  and 
impregnated  with  Greek  learning,  but  invariably  hold- 
ing together  and  preserving  their  own  traditions  and  cus- 
toms. Like  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  empire  they 
enjoyed  the  benefit  of  Eoman  law.  They  were  upon  the 
whole  rather  protected  and  favoured  than  oppressed  by  the 
emperors ;  their  elders  even  enjoyed  particular  privileges. 
Holding  strictly  together  and  mutually  supporting  and 
furthering  each  other's  undertakings,  they  were  success- 
ful competitors  in  every  sphere  of  industry ;  and  were  hated 
accordingly.  Much  as  their  circumcision,  their  sabbath- 
keeping,  their  laws  about  meat  and  drink,  their  close  exclu- 
siveness  might  arouse  derision  and  contempt,  there  lay  in 
their  worship  of  the  one  invisible  and  purely  spiritual  God 
a  mighty  element  of  attraction  for  the  heathen  with  their 
overcrowded  pantheon.  Enemies  of  the  gods  and  of  men ! 
— so  rang  the  cry  of  the  heathen  populace  against  a  nation 
whose  springs  of  action  were  incomprehensible.  About  the 
time  of  the  Roman  conquest  of  Judsea  the  Jews  were  not 
infrequently  sacrificed  by  thousands  to  the  fury  of  the 
heathen  populace. 

They  soon  recovered  a  rallying-point  and  chief  ruler ; 
in  the  little  town  of  Jamnia  in  Palestine  a  sanhedrin  was 
established — the  president  of  which  became  recognised  and 
honoured  as  the  patriarch  of  the  whole  nation — forming  both 
a  chief  court  of  justice  and  a  high  school  of  instruction. 

It  was  just  at  that  period,  and  in  consequence  of  the 
ascendency  of  the  party  of  the  Zealots,  whose  predominance 
had  much  increased  during  the  late  wars,  that  Judaism 
received  a  powerful  impulse  towards  concentration.  Phari- 
saic views  became  exclusively  prevalent  to  the  rejection  of 
all  other  influences,  such  as  Hellenism  and  Essenism ;  the 
Talmud,  which,  like  a  band  of  iron,  held  the  nation  in  its 
grip,  and  kept  all  its  limbs  fast-bound,  completed  the  sepa- 
ration of  Jew  from  Gentile  all  the  more  surely,  because 


214  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  « 

Koman  law  forbade  the  circumcision  of  those  who  were  not 
of  Jewish  birth.  Meanwhile  the  vital  question  was :  What 
attitude  would  those  to  whom  the  future  belonged,  viz.  the 
Christians,  adopt  towards  the  Jews  ?  The  primitive  churches 
remained  in  this  matter  faithful  to  the  example  and  word 
of  their  Master  and  to  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles.  Hence 
they  believed  and  taught :  first,  that  the  death  of  Christ,  of 
which  the  elders  of  the  Jews  and  a  part  of  the  people  of 
Jerusalem  were  guilty,  was  by  no  means  a  crime  burdening 
the  whole  nation  for  ever  ;  Christ,  on  the  contrary,  Himself 
prayed  for  the  forgiveness  of  those  who  crucified  Him,  and 
this  prayer  was  doubtless  heard.  Peter,  like  his  Master, 
excused  their  offence  by  their  ignorance.  Secondly,  the 
nation  is  by  no  means  cast  off  by  God,  even  though  its 
dispersion,  the  destruction  of  its  polity,  of  its  temple  and 
city,  are  to  be  looked  upon  as  punishments.  Israel  remains 
the  chosen  people,  for  God  does  not  recall  His  election  and 
promises.  When  once  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  shall 
come  in,  then  the  fulness  of  believing  Israel,  with  the 
believers  from  amongst  the  Gentiles,  will  go  to  form  one 
united  community.  Starting  from  these  views,  gathered 
out  of  the  New  Testament,  the  wisest  and  most  esteemed 
amongst  the  fathers  of  the  church  taught  that  the  Jews 
are  brethren  who  have  temporarily  gone  astray,  but 
will  sooner  or  later  return  to  their  Father's  house, 
and  who  still  are,  and  will  continue  to  be,  the  possessors 
of  irrevocable  promises.  Christians,  therefore,  were  en- 
joined, without  separating  themselves  from  the  nation  to 
whom  Christ  and  His  Apostles  belonged,  to  treat  its  mem- 
bers with  toleration  and  forbearing  love.  Origen,  the  best 
informed  and  most  intellectual  of  the  earlier  fathers, 
declares,  '  They  are  and  will  ever  remain  our  brethren,  who 
will  in  due  time  be  united  to  us  whenever  we,  through 
our  faith  and  life,  shall  have  roused  them  to  emulation  with 
us.'  Even  Augustine  frequently  expresses  the  opinion  that 
in  the  hearts  of  Christians  lives  the  conviction  which  is 
continually  acted  upon,  that  the  descendants  of  the  Jews  of 


x  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  215 

the  present  generation  will  be  united  to  the  Christians  in 
one  faith.  These  sentiments  of  the  older  church  were 
obliterated,  however,  when  Christianity  became  the  religion 
of  the  state  in  Eome,  and  the  heathen  masses  in  Rome 
who  hated  and  despised  the  Jews  were  half  willingly,  half 
compulsorily,  converted  to  Christianity.  Synods  now  began 
to  forbid  eating  with  a  Jew,  and  Ambrose,  who,  whilst  yet 
unbaptized,  had  been  raised  to  the  bishopric  of  Milan,  pro- 
nounced the  burning  of  a  synagogue  in  Eome  to  be  a  deed 
well  pleasing  to  God,  and  charged  the  Emperor  Maximus 
with  being  a  Jew  because  he  commanded  the  synagogue  to 
be  rebuilt.  With  few  exceptions  the  Christian  writings  now 
breathe  a  hostile  tone  ;  the  term  brethren  disappears ;  alie- 
nation from  the  church  is  no  longer  ascribed  to  ignorance, 
but  to  culpable  obstinacy.  The  hope  of  future  union  still 
survives,  but  is  relegated  to  a  remote  period  in  the  future, 
at  the  final  catastrophe  of  the  latter  days  before  the  last 
Judgment.  Life  in  community  with  Israel,  when  Israel 
moreover,  according  to  the  teaching  of  Scripture,  would  be 
restored  to  his  hereditary  primacy,  was  such  a  burdensome 
and  irksome  prospect,  that  it  was  pleasanter  to  restrict  it 
to  a  few  days  or  months. 

The  Christian  emperors  had  made  no  essential  altera- 
tions in  their  legislation  concerning  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  the  Jews,  until  Theodosius  II.,  in  the  year  439, 
excluded  them  from  all  offices,  even  municipal ;  and  as  the 
statute  of  Theodosius  was  embodied  in  the  code  of  Justi- 
nian, this  may  be  regarded  as  an  indication  of  their 
position  in  the  Eastern  Eoman  Empire  as  well  as  in 
Europe. 

In  the  West  we  come  across  the  first  attempt  at  com- 
pulsory conversion  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  in 
the  Frankish  Kingdom ;  Avitus  in  Clermont,  and  the 
kings  Chilperic  and  Dagobert  set  the  example,  which  was 
quickly  followed  wholesale  in  the  Gothic  Kingdom  of 
Spain.  Here,  where  the  bishops  governed  the  state,  King 
Sisebut,  in  the  year  612,  allowed  the  Jews  no  choice  but  to 


216  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  ix 

leave  the  country  or  to  receive  baptism.  Many  preferred 
the  latter,  but  relapsed  afterwards  into  Judaism,  and  a 
series  of  coercive  laws  was  thereupon  passed  with  the 
object  of  retaining  in  the  church  those  who  had  been 
baptized  by  force,  and  of  punishing  apostasy— so  runs  the 
decree  of  the  national  synod  of  Toledo — a  weighty  deter- 
mination, destined  to  cost  more  blood  and  tears  than  any 
of  the  ancient  heathen  statutes,  for  it  served  as  the  pre- 
cedent for  innumerable  acts  in  subsequent  times.  Within 
the  Frankish  realm  the  decrees  of  the  episcopal  councils 
shaped  themselves  for  a  long  time  upon  the  lines  of  the 
imperial  edicts.  Jews  were  forbidden  to  marry  Chris- 
tians, to  possess  or  to  sell  Christian  slaves,  or  to  sit  in 
judgment  upon  Christians.  Christians  might  not  break 
bread  with  Jews ;  to  call  in  a  Jewish  physician  was  de- 
clared unlawful.  Bitter  hostility  against  the  Jewish  people 
is  first  apparent  in  the  Frankish  Kingdom  in  the  writings 
of  the  Archbishops  Agobert  and  Amolo  of  Lyons,  about 
the  year  848 ;  the  latter  commended  Sisebut's  proceeding 
as  well-pleasing  to  God  and  worthy  of  imitation — an  evil 
omen  for  times  to  come.  These  writings,  however,  show 
that,  in  the  first  place,  there  was  as  yet  no  question  of 
the  Christians  being  impoverished  by  the  usury  of  the 
Jews,  and  in  the  next,  that  the  emperor,  the  state  officials, 
and  even  the  peasantry  were  still  well  inclined  towards  the 
Jews,  and  that  the  governing  power  still  protected  them. 

But  with  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century  things  took 
a  turn  of  portentous  significance  to  Christians,  as  well  as 
Jews  and  heathens.  The  highest  authority  in  the  Western 
world  had  proclaimed  the  principle  of  religious  wars,  and 
had  discovered  the  means  of  nourishing  them  and  con- 
tinually provoking  them  afresh.  It  had  come  to  be  a 
purifying  and  saving  work  to  make  war  upon  nations  that 
were  not  Christian,  to  compel  heathens  and  unbelievers  to 
embrace  the  faith,  to  plunder  and  root  out  those  who 
resisted.  This  inevitably  placed  the  Hebrew  people  in  a 
much  worse  position  than  they  had  been  in  before,  and 


«  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  217 

although  Europe  far  and  wide  was  making  great  progress 
in  the  formation  of  regularly  organised  states,  it  brought 
no  advantage  to  the  Jews,  but  rather,  with  every  century 
previous  to  the  Eeformation,  a  continual  aggravation  of 
misery.  For  in  the  eyes  of  the  Christian  of  those  days 
the  Jew  was  worse  than  the  infidel ;  in  the  official  lan- 
guage of  the  church  he  was  perfidus,  that  is  to  say  a  man 
deserving  neither  of  truth  nor  trust.  Oremus  et  pro  per- 
fidis  Judceis,  runs  the  Liturgy  for  Good  Friday,  and  all  the 
theologians  and  canonical  writers  of  the  time  make  use  of 
the  same  expression.  The  Jew  was  to  be  avoided  as  one 
that  is  plague-stricken,  whose  breath  is  infectious ;  as  a 
dangerous  seducer,  whose  discourse  is  redolent  of  the 
poison  of  doubt  and  infidelity.  The  laity  were  forbidden 
to  exchange  a  single  word  with  him  on  religious  subjects. 

When  the  hosts  of  the  Crusaders  set  out  for  the  war 
against  the  Mohammedans  in  Asia,  they  first  murdered  the 
Jews  in  their  homes  and  plundered  their  houses.  The 
establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  Jerusalem  was  inaugu- 
rated by  the  burning  of  the  Jewish  inhabitants  together 
with  their  synagogues. 

These  were  the  acts  of  fanatical,  undisciplined  bands. 
Yet,  by  princes  also  and  people,  by  priests  and  laymen,  it 
was  only  natural  that  the  decisions  of  popes  and  councils 
should  be  taken  as  the  standard  for  the  behaviour  of  Chris- 
tians towards  Jews. 

The  Eoman  bishops  had  not  at  first  concerned  them- 
selves about  the  Jews  ;  their  letters  and  enactments  of  the 
first  six  centuries  contain  no  mention  of  them — the  imperial 
statutes  were  considered  sufficient.  Gregory  the  Great 
was  unwearied  in  his  endeavours  to  protect  the  Jews  of 
Lower  Italy  against  the  frequent  acts  of  violence  of  which 
they  were  the  victims,  and  forbade  their  being  forced  to 
embrace  Christianity ;  but  in  purchasing  their  conversion 
by  guaranteeing  to  them  certain  advantages,  he  set  up  the 
perilous  principle  so  often  appealed  to  afterwards  whenever 
conversions  were  effected  by  force,  that  the  church  gained 


218  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  ix 

thereby,  if  not  the  very  persons  who  were  bought  over, 
yet  at  any  rate  their  children. 

For  the  next  three  hundred  years  the  popes  were  silent 
as  to  the  Jewish  people.  The  first  great  rise  of  the  papacy, 
dating  from  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century,  was  the 
work  of  the  pseudo-Isidore,  Nicolas  I.,  and  his  immediate 
successors.  When  the  long  silence  was  broken  by  Stephen  VI. 
(885-891),  an  exceedingly  hostile  tone  had  in  Korne  already 
taken  the  place  of  the  old  clemency.  The  intelligence, 
wrote  the  pope  to  the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne,  that  the 
Jews,  those  enemies  of  God,  were  there  by  means  of  royal 
grants  possessed  of  freehold  estates  (allodium),  and  that 
Christians  lived  in  daily  intercourse  with,  and  did  service 
to,  those  dogs  from  whom  God  Himself,  in  punishment  for 
the  death  of  Christ,  had  withdrawn  all  the  favours  and 
promises  He  had  sworn  to  give  them,  filled  him  with  deadly 
anxiety. 

Thus  the  signal  was  given  and  the  new  pathway  en- 
tered upon,  along  which  still  further  advance  was  made. 
The  Jews  were  certainly  not  seldom  successful  in  obtaining 
letters  of  protection  from  the  popes.  The  prohibition 
against  baptizing  them  by  force,  robbing  or  murdering  them, 
was  frequently  renewed ;  but  whereas  in  other  matters,  even 
the  most  trifling,  ban,  interdict,  inquisition,  and  other 
drastic  measures  were  threatened  and  employed,  bulls  to 
protect  the  Jews  never  went  beyond  general  exhortation  ; 
the  penal  sanction  was  wanting.2  Kings  and  great  nobles 
everywhere  set  the  example  of  lawless  oppression,  ill-treat- 
ment, and  robbery  of  Jews,  and  no  instance  is  to  be  found 
of  the  popes  rebuking  these  proceedings,  or  interfering  to 
take  the  part  of  the  oppressed.  On  the  contrary,  when 
Philip  Augustus  despoiled  and  banished  the  French  Jews, 
Celestine  III.  pronounced  that  he  had  acted  out  of  godly 
zeal.3  So  when  an  ecclesiastical  prince,  to  make  sure-of 
his  ground,  petitioned  the  pope  for  permission  to  exile  the 

2  The  bull  of  Innocent  IV.,  1247  A.D.,  is  an  exception. 
*  Revue  des  etudes  Junes,  i.  118.    Paris,  1880. 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUKOPE  219 

Jews,  it  was  willingly  accorded.  The  declaration  of  Inno- 
cent III.  that  the  entire  nation  was  destined  by  God  on 
account  of  its  sins  to  perpetual  slavery,  was  the  Magna 
Charta  continually  appealed  to  by  those  who  coveted  the 
possessions  of  the  Jews  and  the  earnings  of  their  industry ; 
both  princes  and  people  acted  upon  it.  The  impression 
which  it  made  was  not  mitigated  by  the  circumstance  that 
the  popes  grounded  their  occasional  letters  of  protection 
solely  upon  the  prophecy  that  a  remnant  would  remain 
who  would  be  converted  in  the  latter  days.  Such  a  frag- 
ment of  Judaism  would  certainly,  it  was  supposed,  never 
fail  to  be  found,  if  not  in  Europe,  yet  at  any  rate  in  Asia. 

The  succeeding  popes  took  their  stand  upon  the  maxims 
and  behests  of  Innocent  III.  If  the  Jews  built  themselves 
a  synagogue,  it  was  to  be  pulled  down ;  they  might  only 
repair  the  old  ones.  No  Jew  might  appear  as  a  witness 
against  a  Christian.  The  bishops  were  charged  to  enforce 
the  wearing  of  the  distinctive  badge,  the  hat  or  the  yellow 
garment,  by  all  the  means  in  their  power.  The  wearing 
of  the  badge  was  particularly  cruel  and  oppressive,  for  in 
the  frequent  tumults  and  risings  in  the  towns  the  Jews, 
being  thus  recognisable  at  a  glance,  fell  all  the  more 
easily  into  the  hands  of  the  excited  mob ;  and  if  a  Jew 
undertook  a  journey  he  inevitably  became  a  prey  to  the 
numerous  bandits  and  adventurers,  who  naturally  con- 
sidered him  as  an  outlaw.  In  Spain  the  Jews  had  conse- 
quently gained  permission  to  dress  as  they  pleased  upon 
a  journey,  but  the  permission  was  very  soon  withdrawn.4 

Foremost  in  heightening  the  severity  of  the  already 
merciless  legislation  directed  by  the  church  against  the 
Jews  was  Eugene  IV.,  who  overruled  the  more  humane 
provisions  made  for  them  by  Martin  V.  It  is  a  matter  of 
astonishment,  if  all  these  regulations  were  strictly  enforced, 
how  these  people  could  have  carried  on  their  wretched 
existence. 

Where  popes  failed  to  interfere,  the  councils  of  the 
4  Amador  de  los  Rios,  Historia  de  los  Judios  de  Espana,  iii.  412. 


220  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  il 

various  countries  made  amends  for  the  omission;  they 
forbade,  for  instance,  a  Christian  letting  or  selling  a  house 
to  a  Jew,  or  buying  wine  from  him.  Besides  all  this,  the 
order  was  often  renewed  that  all  copies  of  the  Talmud  and 
commentaries  upon  it — consequently  the  greater  part  of 
the  Jewish  literature — should  be  burnt — on  account  of  the 
passages  hostile  to  Christianity  contained  in  them ;  and  this 
order  was  a  fruitful  pretext  for  intimidation,  persecution, 
and  imprisonment.  It  would  appear  as  if  the  powers  of 
the  earth  could  offer  only  stones  for  bread  to  this  persecuted 
people,  and  had  no  other  answer  to  their  petitions  than 
that  which  their  own  ancestors  had  once  given  to  their 
tyrant  Herod  when  he  asked  what  he  should  do  for  them, 
and  they  shouted  to  him  that  he  should  hang  himself ! 

The  new  theory  as  to  the  Jews  being  in  a  state  of 
slavery  was  now  adopted  and  enlarged  upon  by  theologians 
and  canonists.  Thomas  Aquinas,  whose  teaching  was 
received  by  the  whole  Eoman  Church  as  unassailable,  pro- 
nounced that  since  the  race  was  condemned  to  perpetual 
bondage  princes  could  dispose  of  the  possessions  of  the 
Jews  just  as  they  would  of  their  own.5  A  long  list  of 
canonical  writers  maintained,  upon  the  same  ground,  the 
right  of  princes  and  governors  to  seize  upon  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  Jews  and  have  them  baptized  by  force.6  It 
was  commonly  taught,  and  the  ecclesiastical  claim  still 
exists,  that  a  Jewish  child  once  baptized  was  not  to  be  left 
to  the  father.  Meanwhile  princes  had  eagerly  seized  upon 
the  papal  doctrine  that  the  perpetual  slavery  of  the  Jews 
was  ordained  by  God,  and  on  it  the  Emperor  Frederick  II. 
founded  the  claim  that  all  Jews  belonged  to  him  as  emperor, 
following  the  contention  prevalent  at  the  time  that  the 
right  of  lordship  over  them  devolved  upon  him  as  the 

5  De  regimine  Judaorum  ad  Ducissam  Brabantia.     Opp.  xvii.  192. 

6  The  gloss  upon  c.  Judceorum,  c.  289.  1  (ed.  Lugdun.  1584,  p.  1545), 
disapproves  of  the  compulsory  baptism  of  Jewish  children,  but  only  when 
it  happened  indistincte,  and  in  so  far  that  if  universally  carried  out  there 
would  soon  be  no  Jews  left,  whereas  a  remnant  must  be  ajlowecl  to  remain 
for  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy. 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  221 

successor  of  the  old  Roman  Emperors.  We  even  find  his 
son  Conrad  IV.  making  use  of  the  expression  '  bond- servants 
of  our  treasury,'  and  the  '  Mirror  of  Swabia '  professed  to 
know  that  *  King  Titus  had  made  a  present  of  them  to  the 
imperial  treasury.'  King  Albert  went  so  far  as  to  claim 
from  King  Philip  of  France  that  the  French  Jews  should 
be  handed  over  to  him ;  and  certain  Jews  themselves,  later 
on,  stated,  in  a  memorial  addressed  by  them  to  the  Council 
of  Ratisbon,  that  they  belonged  to  the  emperor,  in  order 
that  he  might  prevent  their  total  extermination  by  the 
Christians  and  preserve  them  in  remembrance  of  the  pas- 
sion of  Christ.7 

From  the  fourteenth  century  this  '  servitude  to  the 
state '  was  understood  to  mean  complete  slavery.  *  You 
yourselves,  your  bodies  and  your  possessions,  belong,'  says 
the  Emperor  Charles  IV.  in  a  document  addressed  to  the 
Jews,  '  to  us  and  to  the  empire ;  we  may  act,  make,  and 
do  with  you  what  we  will  and  please.' 8  The  Jews  were, 
in  fact,  constantly  handed  about  like  merchandise  from  one 
to  another ;  the  emperor,  now  in  this  place,  now  in  that, 
declared  their  claims  for  debts  to  be  cancelled  ;  and  for  this 
a  heavy  sum  was  paid  into  his  treasury,  usually  30  per  cent. 

The  protection  which  emperor  and  empire  were  supposed 
to  guarantee  to  the  bond- servants  of  the  treasury  was 
often  illusory,  even  when  privileges  were  granted  to  them  ; 
they  remained  substantially  without  rights.  The  govern- 
ment in  reality  only  interfered  when  self-interest  demanded 
that  men,  who  were  so  useful  and  profitable  in  many  ways, 
should  not  be  permitted  to  be  entirely  ruined.  In  other  re- 
spects every  man's  hand,  from  the  king  downward  through 
all  classes  even  to  the  common  people,  was  against  them. 
Protection  was  frequently  guaranteed  to  them  for  a  certain 
period,  upon  the  expiration  of  which  they  were  as  good  as 
outlawed,  unless  they  purchased  the  renewal  of  their  writ 
of  protection  by  the  payment  of  an  exorbitant  sum.  They 

*  Gemeiner,  Regensburger  Chronik,  of  the  year  1477,  iii.  602. 
8  Hegel,  Chronihen  der  deutschen  Sttidte,  i.  26. 


222  THE  JEWS  IN  EUKOPE  tx 

were  treated  as  sponges  which  are  allowed  to  suck  up 
water  that  they  may  be  squeezed  out  again.  An  occurrence 
which  took  place  in  1390  ought  for  ever  to  be  remembered 
by  Germans  as  a  warning.  King,  princes,  nobles,  and 
towns  had  all  alike  fallen  into  debt  through  continual  civil 
war,  and  the  precedent  set  by  France  was  thereupon 
followed.  The  Diet  of  Nuremberg  declared  all  debts  owing 
to  the  Jews  to  be  cancelled  upon  payment  by  the  debtors 
of  15  per  cent,  into  the  royal  treasury.  The  Duke  of 
Bavaria,  the  Count  of  Dettingen,  and  the  town  of  Katisbon 
secured  in  this  way  100,000  gold  florins  apiece. 

If  ever  a  prince  chanced  to  show  some  favour  towards 
the  Jews  of  his  land,  or  towards  any  individual,  by  the 
concession  of  a  piece  of  ground  or  the  appointment  to  an 
office,  a  papal  brief  of  warning  and  rebuke  forthwith  ap- 
peared, with  the  reminder  that  the  son  of  the  bond-woman 
must  never  be  preferred  to  the  son  of  the  free-woman.  The 
papal  cardinal-legates  ordained  at  the  councils — for  in- 
stance, at  that  of  Vienna  in  1267 — that  no  Jew  was  to  be 
tolerated  in  a  bath-house,  tavern,  or  inn,  and  that  no 
Christian  should  buy  meat  of  a  Jew,  since  the  Jew  might 
easily  take  occasion  to  poison  him.  In  the  year  1335  the 
Synod  of  Salamanca  declared  that  physicians  of  the  Mosaic 
faith  only  offered  their  services  with  the  crafty  design  of 
exterminating  the  Christians — the  whole  population,  that  is 
to  say,  of  Europe. 

The  hatred  and  abhorrence  thus  sown  were  reaped 
in  a  crop  of  massacre.  Accustomed  to  the  notion  that 
every  Jew  was  a  born  enemy  and  debtor  to  the  Christian, 
the  people  of  that  time,  which,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  was  a 
period  of  enthusiastic  credulity,  or  rather  eagerness  to  believe 
in,  all  that  was  horrible  and  unnatural,  imagined  the  Jews 
to  be  capable  of  even  the  most  impossible  crimes.  Since 
the  twelfth  century  the  fable  had  gained  ground  that  the 
Jews  needed  Christian  blood — by  some  it  was  supposed  for 
their  Paschal  Feast,  by  others  as  a  remedy  against  a  secret 
hereditary  evil— on  which  account  they  yearly  murdered  a 


THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  228 

boy.  Others  were  convinced  that  a  Christian  was  yearly 
crucified  in  mockery  of  the  Redeemer. 

If  a  corpse,  showing  traces  of  violence,  or  a  dead  child, 
was  anywhere  discovered,  it  was  at  once  assumed  that  a 
Jew  had  been  the  murderer.  The  usual  hypothesis  was 
that  of  a  crime  committed  by  a  number  of  Jews  in  concert, 
and  torture  was  applied  until  it  produced  confessions. 
Horrible  executions,  and  in  many  cases  a  general  massacre 
of  all  the  Jewish  population  in  the  town  and  district,  were 
sure  to  follow.  There  was  no  thought  of  regular  and  im- 
partial judicial  proceedings.  The  judges  and  officials 
themselves  trembled  before  the  frenzy  of  the  multitude, 
who  were  convinced  beforehand  of  the  guilt  of  the  accused, 
for  the  presumption  always  was  that  every  member  of  this 
murderous  race  was  ready  to  commit  the  most  abominable 
deeds.  From  time  to  time  the  report  that  a  Jew  had 
stabbed  or  mutilated  an  image  of  Christ  was  the  signal  for 
a  general  massacre.  In  1290  rumours  got  afloat  of  the 
mishandling  and  miraculous  bleeding  of  the  sacred  host. 
From  Paris,  where  the  first  case  was  recorded,  the  marvel- 
lous tale  spread  through  the  neighbouring  countries;  the 
possession  of  such  a  sacred  wonder  was  soon  coveted  in 
other  places,  until  at  length  it  appeared  as  if  the  Jews,  seized 
by  a  demoniacal  frenzy,  at  once  believed  and  did  not 
believe  a  dogma  of  the  church,  and  withal  cherished  an 
irresistible  craving  for  an  excruciating  death,  so  often  was 
vengeance  taken  upon  them  for  the  supposed  sacrilege. 

In  London  the  Jews  were  murdered  because  they  were 
said  to  have  intended  to  burn  the  whole  city  with  Greek  fire. 

The  great  plague  which  passed  over  and  depopulated 
all  Europe  in  1348  was  attributed  without  hesitation  to  the 
Jews.  The  fact  that  so  temperate  and  abstemious  a  people 
were  visited  far  more  lightly  than  the  Christians  raised  sus- 
picion to  certainty.  They  had  everywhere,  in  pursuance 
of  a  great  conspiracy,  to  which  even  the  lazar-house  was 
a  party,  poisoned  the  wells  and  springs  and  even  the 
rivers.  In  Zofingen  poison  was  said  to  have  been  found 


224  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  ix 

in  a  well.  A  few  Jews  and  lepers  confessed,  under  tor- 
ture, to  have  been  guilty  of  the  deed;  and  thereupon 
there  broke  out  over  the  country  a  storm  of  fanaticism,  of 
inhuman  vengeance,  and  sordid  avarice,  such  as  Europe 
has  never  witnessed  before  or  since.  The  victims  in  some 
towns  were  counted  by  thousands.  Many  forestalled  the 
fury  of  the  populace  by  committing  suicide.  Vainly  in  two 
bulls  did  Pope  Clement  VI.  declare  the  Jews  to  be  innocent. 
Only  those  who  managed  to  take  speedy  flight  found  a 
refuge  in  distant  Lithuania. 

But  the  popular  hatred  against  the  Jews  was  not  due 
solely  to  religious  causes  and  to  a  belief  in  the  crimes  im- 
puted to  them ;  a  third  motive  must  be  added,  as  strong  as, 
or  even  stronger  than,  the  rest.  The  Jews  lent  money 
upon  interest — they  were  usurers ;  they  carried  on  an  in- 
dustry, indispensable  indeed,  but  at  the  same  time  sinful, 
and  sucked  the  lifeblood,  it  was  said,  of  the  Christians. 
The  accusation,  without  being  untrue,  was  unjust. 

Popes  and  councils,  relying  upon  an  incorrect  interpre- 
tation of  a  passage  in  the  Gospel,9  had  since  the  end  of  the 
eighth  century  unanimously  and  with  increasing  vehemence 
condemned  and  threatened  with  the  punishments  of  the 
church  any  one  who  should  lend  capital  at  interest,  in 
whatsoever  form.  In  the  early  church  only  ecclesiastics  had 
been  forbidden  to  receive  interest,  but  with  the  growing 
influence  of  the  papal  chair  the  prohibition  was  extended 
to  laymen. 

No  distinction  was  made  between  interest  and  usury ; 
every  condition  imposed  or  sum  received,  even  to  the 
smallest  amount,  over  and  above  the  amount  of  capital 
lent,  was  condemned  by  popes  and  councils;  and  Alexander 
III.  in  1179  declared  that  the  prohibition  in  this  matter 
could  never  be  suspended  by  dispensation.  At  the  Council 
of  Vienna,  1311,  Clement  V.  pronounced  in  addition  that 
to  assert  the  taking  of  interest  not  to  be  sinful  was  heresy. 

All  trade  and  commerce  were  by  this  means  intolerably 
*  Luke  vi.  35. 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUKOPE  225 

shackled ;  the  more  so  that  Pope  Gregory  IX.  further 
declared  that  even  to  advance  the  money  upon  interest 
which  was  necessary  for  maritime  trade  was  damnable 
usury. 

In  this  way  the  church  had  placed  herself  in  opposition 
to  natural  laws,  to  the  exigencies  of  civil  life,  and  to  the 
general  intercourse  of  mankind.  But  it  was  one  thing  to 
prohibit ;  it  was  quite  another  to  insist  that  her  subjects 
should  advance  their  money  without  interest.  With  the 
general  deficiency  of  ready  money  at  a  time  when  no 
remedy  existed  for  the  steady  decrease  in  the  supply  of  gold 
and  silver,1  every  one,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  was 
frequently  in  the  predicament  of  being  obliged  to  borrow 
money,  and  since  money-dealing  was  strictly  forbidden  to 
Christians,  and  could  only  be  carried  on  by  them  under 
cover  of  many  formalities  and  in  round-about  ways,  the 
Jews,  who  were  debarred  from  all  other  lines  of  industry 
and  situations  in  life,  here  stepped  in. 

The  Jews  had  always  been  an  industrious  people.  So 
long  as  they  formed  a  polity  of  their  own,  agriculture, 
horticulture,  and  handicrafts  had  been  their  prevailing 
employments.  Palestine  had  become  under  their  hands 
one  of  the  best  cultivated  and  most  fruitful  countries  of  the 
earth.  The  Mosaic  Law  had  been  directed  towards  the 
cultivation  of  the  ground — towards  the  production  of  corn 
and  wine  and  oil.  Even  in  the  first  century  after  Christ, 
and  after  the  Dispersion,  the  people  had  remained  true  to 
the  old  custom.  Josephus,  in  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century,  extols  the  industry  of  his  fellow-countrymen  in 
handicrafts  and  agriculture. 

In  Eornan  literature  and  in  the  laws  of  the  emperors 
there  is  no  trace  of  the  Jews  devoting  themselves  to 
chaffering  and  petty  trade,  or  of  their  becoming  at  all  a 
mercantile  people.  The  swarms  of  Jews  living  in  Eome 
seem  to  have  been  poor.  The  violent  and  bloody  revolts  of 
the  Jews  in  Egypt,  Cyrene,  and  in  the  islands,  also  point 

,  As  Peschel  has  showed. 


226  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  ix 

to  the  fact  that  they  were  a  population  not  addicted  to 
trade  or  selling,  for  such  people  are  not  wont  to  rush  to 
arms.  Even  down  to  the  tenth  century  they  formed  no 
settled  population  in  Spain,  in  the  south  of  France,  or  in 
Germany,  for  settlement  in  those  countries  had,  thanks 
to  the  hostility  of  the  church  and  the  people,  been  made 
impossible.  After  the  rise  of  the  commercial  and  maritime 
cities  of  Italy,  with  their  fleets,  the  Jews  had,  moreover, 
been  ousted  from  the  occupation  of  carriers  between  the 
West  and  the  East.  The  creation  of  guilds  and  the  pro- 
hibition of  intercourse  prevented  them  from  carrying  on 
any  handicraft.  Still  less  could  they  gain  a  livelihood  by 
agriculture,  since  they  were  forbidden  in  almost  every  place 
to  own  land. 

Cardinal  Jacob  de  Vitry,  who  was  well  acquainted  with 
the  East,  observes,  about  the  year  1244,  that  amongst  the 
Mohammedans  the  Jews  were  enabled  to  carry  on  certain 
occupations,  although  of  the  lowest  and  most  despised  kind, 
but  that  amongst  the  Christians  they  lived  by  putting 
money  out  to  interest.  This  cannot  but  force  us  to  reflect 
of  what  benefit  it  would  have  been  to  the  world,  both 
Christian  and  Jewish,  if  a  cardinal  or  a  pope  in  those  days 
could  have  taken  to  heart  this  contrast  between  the  Jews 
under  the  Koran  and  the  Jews  under  the  Cross,  and  have 
drawn  the  practical  conclusion  which  is  obvious. 

In  the  same  way  the  Jews  were  debarred,  as  a  rule, 
from  the  medical  profession,  although  in  Mohammedan 
countries  it  was  in  the  art  of  medicine  that  they  at- 
tained to  great  renown.  But  councils  had  forbidden  the 
sick,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  to  receive  remedies 
from  a  Jewish  physician,  since  it  was  said  to  be  better 
to  die  than  to  allow  oneself  to  be  cured  by  an  unbeliever. 
From  all  schools,  high  and  low,  it  is  needless  to  say,  they 
were  excluded.  Those  who  were  ambitious  of  learning  had 
to  become  Kabbis,  and  if  by  a  rare  exception  a  prince  like 
Alphonso  X.  of  Castile  availed  himself  of  the  services  of 
Jewish  mathematicians  and  astronomers,  the  education  of 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUEOPE  227 

these  men  had  been  acquired  in  countries  under  the  sway 
of  the  Koran. 

The  Jewish  law  allowed  its  people  to  take  interest  from 
strangers,  and  by  neither  side  was  it  at  first  thought  that 
Christ's  supposed  prohibition  could  be  binding  upon  the 
Jews.  But  from  the  time  of  Innocent  III.  this  too  was 
changed.  Theologians  and  canonists  began  at  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century  to  teach  that  to  receive  interest  was  for- 
bidden, and  as  such  made  sinful,  both  by  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testament.  Innocent  III.  accordingly  ordained  that 
the  Jews  should  be  compelled  to  return  the  interest  they 
had  received,  and  in  order  to  enforce  the  decree  had  recourse 
to  means  not  hitherto  employed,  namely — that  Christians, 
under  pain  of  excommunication,  should  break  off  all  com- 
munication with  Jews  who  refused  to  refund  the  interest. 
This  meant  nothing  less,  if  the  order  were  strictly  carried 
out,  than  that  the  latter  should  be  given  up  to  starvation. 
Desperate  confusion  and  conflicts  of  every  kind  thereupon 
arose.  The  bishops,  upon  whom  rested  the  responsibility 
of  putting  into  effect  the  sentence  of  excommunication,  were 
seriously  in  earnest  with  it,  and  synods  (for  instance,  that  of 
Avignon  in  1209)  exhorted  them  to  be  so.  The  princes,  on 
the  contrary,  in  whose  interest  and  as  whose  liegemen  the 
Jews  carried  on  their  money- dealing,  shielded  them,  or  in 
many  instances  cut  the  matter  short  by  appropriating  the 
whole  wealth  of  the  Jews,  upon  the  plea  of  its  having  been 
acquired  through  interest,  or  else  compelled  the  Christian 
debtors  to  pay  the  arrears  of  interest  into  the  princely 
coffers. 

The  quagmire  into  which  the  hierarchy,  with  its  pro- 
hibition of  interest,  had  brought  itself  and  the  rest  of  the 
world,  both  clerical  and  lay,  was  bottomless.  Canonical 
writers  cudgelled  their  brains  to  invent  distinctions  and  to 
discover  a  way  out  of  the  labyrinth.  In  innumerable  cases 
men  were  either  helpless  in  the  presence  of  the  actual 
circumstances,  or  else  had  to  sacrifice  the  principle,  which 
nevertheless  in  theory  no  one,  on  pain  of  death,  dared  to 

Q  2 


228  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  ix 

impugn.  Christians,  it  would  be  naturally  inferred,  ought 
to  be  forbidden  to  borrow  upon  interest,  since  they  were 
thus  inducing  the  Jews  to  commit  sin.  Yet  popes,  bishops, 
and  clergy  were  themselves  constantly  in  the  position  of 
having  to  borrow,  and  consequently  of  having  to  pay 
interest ;  indeed,  the  whole  organisation  of  the  Curia,  the 
administration  of  benefices,  the  taxation  of  the  clergy  by 
the  popes,  were  so  constituted  that  bishops,  priests,  monas- 
teries, and  ecclesiastical  foundations  had  to  borrow  on 
interest  from  the  Jewish  capitalists.  So  the  canonists 
taught  that,  the  Jews  being  once  for  all  lost,  it  mattered 
not  whether  the  number  of  sins  to  be  laid  to  their  door 
were  greater  or  less ;  the  Christians  who  borrowed  were 
excused  by  the  necessity. 

No  doubt  the  interest  demanded  by  the  Jews  was 
excessively  high,  and  often  such  as  was  impossible  to 
obtain ;  but  this  was  necessitated  by  the  high  value  of 
money  at  the  time,  the  scarcity  of  coin,  and  above  all  by 
the  oppressive  duties  which  the  Jews  were  forced  to  pay 
to  the  princes  and  to  the  municipal  authorities.  The 
Cahorsines  and  the  Italian  bankers  put  their  rate  of  interest 
quite  as  high  as  the  Jews,  and  whenever  business  fell  into 
their  hands,  as  happened  in  Paris  in  the  beginning  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  people  wished  the  Jews  back 
again,  for  their  skill  as  money-brokers,  taken  as  a  whole, 
was  in  many  ways  beneficial  and  at  that  time  indispen- 
sable. In  the  northern  countries  and  in  Spain  they 
performed  the  services  that  in  Italy  were  rendered  by  the 
banking  companies  of  the  so-called  Lombards,2  the 
money-brokers  of  Asti,  Sienna,  Florence,  and  other  towns, 
which  were  partly  favoured  by  popes  and  bishops, 
partly  silently  tolerated,  and  often  employed.  In  France 
and  England  it  sometimes  happened  that  Jews  and  Lom- 
bards acted  in  concert.  In  1352  Ludwig  the  Brandenburger, 
son  of  the  Emperor  Ludwig,  publicly  invited  the  Jews 
to  settle  in  the  country,  free  of  taxation,  because  '  since 

2  Compare  Neumann,  Geschichte  dcs  Wuchers  in  Deutschland,  s.  202. 


u 


THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  229 


the  time  of  the  destruction  of  the  Jews ' — i.e.  since  the 
great  massacre  of  1348 — 'prevails  a  scarcity  of  money 
amongst  rich  and  poor  throughout  our  land.' 3 

A  glance  at  the  varying  fortunes  of  the  Jews  in 
France,  England,  and  Spain,  brings  before  us  in  a  clearer 
light  the  position  in  which  they  had  been  placed  by  the 
hierarchy. 

In  England,  as  well  as  in  Germany,  the  Jews  were  the 
particular  property  of  the  king,  and  from  time  to  time, 
being  regarded  as  a  valuable  and  profitable  possession,  were 
cared  for  and  endowed  with  privileges,  but  at  other  times, 
especially  under  King  John  and  King  Henry  III.,  were  sub- 
jected to  bloody  oppression.  Nominally  they  enjoyed  the 
protection  of  royalty,  but,  upon  occasions  of  sudden  popular 
risings,  assistance  almost  invariably  came  too  late  and  only 
inflamed  the  hatred  of  the  people  against  them.  Henry 
III.,  after  extorting  much  treasure  from  them,  suddenly  in 
1230  seized  upon  a  third  of  their  possessions,  and  some- 
what later  pawned  the  whole  of  British  Jewry  to  Earl 
Eichard.  The  Jews,  finding  the  situation  intolerable, 
petitioned  for  leave  to  emigrate,  which,  the  king's  affection 
for  them  being  so  great,  was  denied  them.  Bishops, 
amongst  them  Grostete  of  Lincoln,  demanded  their  banish- 
ment. Edward  I.,  acting  upon  this  demand  in  1290,  found 
himself  deprived  of  the  best  instruments  through  which  his 
predecessors  had  hitherto  indirectly  taxed  their  subjects. 
In  the  absence  of  any  organisation  or  sufficiency  in  the  re- 
venues of  the  crown,  which  all  states  then  suffered  from,  it 
became  imperatively  needful  to  find  some  substitute  for  the 
exiled  Jews.  Such  a  substitute  was  afforded  by  the  com- 
panies of  the  Cahorsines  and  Italian  money-changers,  who 
had  found  their  way  to  England  through  being  employed 
by  the  Koman  Curia  as  collectors.  However,  in  1345,  the 
most  considerable  amongst  them  suddenly  became  bank- 
rupt, and  departed  with  debts  unpaid.  As  usurers  and 

3  MS.  of  the  Koyal  Archives  of  Munich,  Privilegiorum  torn.  xxv.  fol, 
22, 195, 


230-  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  ix 

financiers  for  the  crown  they  were  not  less  detested  than 
the  Jews. 

In  France  the  maltreatment  and  despoiling  of  the  Jews 
was  carried  on  with  even  more  method  and  cunning. 
Philip  Augustus  began  his  reign  of  fifteen  years  (1182)  by 
pillaging  and  banishing  all  the  Jews.  The  rumour  that 
a  Christian  was  yearly  sacrificed  at  the  Passover  was  the 
pretext  advanced,  but  the  true  motive  was  the  load  of  debt 
under  which  his  father  had  left  him.  In  1198  the  Jews 
were  recalled.  Louis  VIII.  cancelled  by  proclamation  all 
claims  on  the  part  of  the  Jews  for  interest,  and  ordered  that 
the  moneys  owing  to  them  should  be  paid  in  to  their  liege 
lords,  the  king  and  the  barons.  Louis  IX.,  equally  con- 
vinced that  all  taking  of  interest  was  grievous  sin,  and  that 
all  Jews  in  the  land  were  his  bond-servants,  forced  them 
several  times  to  ransom  themselves,  and  when  he  thought 
that  he  had  extorted  sufficient  from  them,  banished  them 
from  the  kingdom  and  confiscated  what  they  still  possessed. 
A  petition  by  the  Jews  to  the  Governor  of  Narbonne  for  the 
restoration  of  the  rights  of  which  the  king  had  deprived 
them  was  couched  in  these  terms  :  *  The  Jews  are  robbed  of 
their  money  and  nevertheless  are  compelled  to  pay  their 
debts,  whilst  their  debtors  are  relieved  from  the  obligation 
of  paying  their  Jewish  creditors.  We  are  forbidden  to 
lend  money  at  interest,  and  shut  out  from  every  other 
means  of  livelihood.'  The  royal  mandate  was  not  com- 
pletely carried  out :  many  remained ;  others  gradually 
returned. 

Louis's  brother,  Count  Alfonso  of  Poitiers,  devised  a 
peculiarly  clever  policy  with  regard  to  the  Jews  in  his 
state,  which  was  frequently  copied  afterwards  in  Germany. 
He  first  obtained  from  the  pope  permission  to  appropriate 
all  the  interest  due  to  the  Jews  under  pretext  of  employing 
it  for  the  Crusade,  and  then  incontinently  threw  all  the 
Jews,  men,  women,  and  children,  into  prison,  from  which 
the  poorer  after  a  time  were  liberated ;  but  the  wealthier 
with  their  wives  were  detained  until  they  had  fully  satisfied 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  231 

the  avarice  of  the  count  and  his  officials.  Philip  the  Fair 
did  not  fail  to  follow  the  example  of  his  grandfather  in  a 
yet  more  thorough  and  lucrative  manner.  In  1306  he 
suddenly  banished  all  the  Jews,  seized  all  they  possessed, 
sold  their  houses,  synagogues,  schools,  and  even  burying- 
grounds,  to  the  highest  bidder,  and  compelled  all  their 
debtors  to  pay  their  debts  into  his  treasury.  He  effected  a 
compromise  with  the  barons,  who  clamoured  for  their  share 
of  the  booty. 

The  drama  was  finally  closed  in  1394,  when  Charles  VI., 
upon  the  representation  of  his  confessor  and  at  the  request 
of  his  wife,  decreed  the  last  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  the 
kingdom,  because,  it  was  said,  many  who  carried  on  com- 
munication with  them  were  observed  to  grow  lukewarm 
(tepidi)  in  the  faith. 

Under  the  Moorish  government  in  Spain  the  lot  of  this 
persecuted,  tormented  people  was  more  tolerable  than  in 
any  Christian  country.  Although  not  absolutely  free,  the 
synagogues  nevertheless  elected  their  own  national  judges  or 
kings  to  represent  them  before  the  authorities ;  their  schools 
flourished ;  medicine  was  practised  by  them  with  more  suc- 
cess than  by  the  Christians.  Under  the  Christian  kings  of 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  they  rose  to  still  greater 
influence  as  financial  advisers  and  treasurers,  astronomers 
and  physicans  ;  in  Toledo  alone  they  numbered  12,000  ;  their 
wealth  allowed  them  at  any  rate  to  purchase  the  most  indis- 
pensable human  rights  at  exorbitant  rates.  Their  condition 
in  Spain  from  the  time  of  the  Moorish  supremacy  to  the  end 
of  the  thirteenth  century  was  upon  the  whole  more  favour- 
able than  in  any  other  country  of  Europe.  Within  the 
walls  of  the  Jewish  quarter  (aljamas)  they  lived  according 
to  their  own  laws  and  customs.  The  fourteenth  century 
brought  disaster  to  the  Jews  of  the  Peninsula  and  elsewhere. 
Valuable  and  serviceable  to  the  kings  as  farmers  of  the  taxes 
and  as  financiers,  they  were  detested  by  the  people  ;  first  in 
one  town  and  then  in  another  they  were  attacked  and  mur- 
dered, and  their  synagogues  were  burned  down;  and  at 


232  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  jx 

length,  in  1391,  the  storm  broke  upon  them  in  all  its  fury, 
and  raged  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Spain. 
Priests  like  the  Archdeacon  of  Ecija  had  contributed  by 
their  preaching  to  fan  the  flame  of  persecution.  Many 
thousands  were  slain,  whilst  200,000  saved  themselves  by 
receiving  baptism,  but  it  was  discovered  in  a  few  years  that 
17,000  had  lapsed  into  Judaism.  A  century  later,  in  1492, 
a  royal  edict  commanded  all  Jews  to  quit  the  country 
leaving  their  goods  behind  them.4 

As  the  Inquisition  at  the  same  time  forbade  the  sale  of 
victuals  to  the  Jews,  the  majority,  however  much  they 
wished  it,  were  unable  to  quit  the  country,  and  were  com- 
pelled to  submit  to  baptism.  Of  those  who  withdrew  into 
exile — the  numbers  are  variously  reckoned  from  170,000  to 
400,000 — the  greater  part  perished  from  pestilence,  starva- 
tion, or  shipwreck.  The  descendants  of  those  who  survived, 
the  Sephardim,  found  refuge  in  Italy,  and  under  Turkish 
rule  in  the  East,  and,  for  a  short  space,  even  in  Portugal. 
Spain  was  overrun  by  a  mixture  of  races,  and  the  conten- 
tions on  the  subject  of  pure  and  impure  blood,  old  and  new 
Christians,  poisoned  the  whole  of  social  life. 

In  Portugal  the  Jews  fared  even  worse  than  their 
brethren  in  Spain.  Their  position  had  for  a  long  time 
been  better  than  in  the  rest  of  the  Peninsula ;  the  deadly 
storm  of  1391  had  not  touched  them ;  they  enjoyed  certain 
privileges,  possessed  land,  followed  the  pursuits  of  agricul- 
ture and  commerce.  But  in  1495  under  King  Manuel,  a 
sovereign  otherwise  remarkable  for  his  mild  and  philan- 
thropic disposition,  a  terrible  blow  overtook  them :  their 
children  under  fourteen  years  of  age  were  torn  from  them 

4  In  Spain  the  right  to  strip  the  outcast  Jews  of  their  possessions  was 
proved — 1,  out  of  the  teaching  of  Innocent  III.,  supported  by  the  divine 
ordinance  to  the  effect  that  the  Jews  were  in  a  state  of  slavery ;  2,  out  of  the 
decretals  of  Pope  Alexander  III.,  forbidding  converted  Jews  to  be  despoiled, 
from  whence  it  followed  that  the  unconverted  might  be  plundered  by  the 
Christians  ;  3,  out  of  the  decretals  of  Clement  III.,  forbidding  the  confisca- 
tion of  their  property  except  by  the  permission  of  the  governing  powers,  by 
whom  the  act  was  rendered  legal.  Paramo,  DC  orig.  off.  s.  Inquisition^ 
J64  (Matriti,  1598). 


THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  233 

and  baptized ;  they  themselves  were  permitted  to  remain 
in  the  land  only  upon  condition  of  turning  Christian. 
Thus  this  kingdom  also  was  filled  with  pretended  con- 
verts and  those  who  had  been  baptized  under  compulsion. 
The  consequences  were  fearful.  In  1506,  upon  one  of 
these  new  Christians  in  Lisbon  expressing  a  doubt  con- 
cerning a  supposed  miracle,  2,000  converts  were  massacred 
in  three  days.  The  Inquisition  was  soon  afterwards  intro- 
duced, as  the  approved  means  for  handing  over  to  the 
exchequer  the  wealth  of  the  new  Christians. 

The  existence  of  the  Jews  in  the  great  mercantile  cities 
of  Italy  was  comparatively  tolerable ;  for,  the  business  of 
banking  and  exchange  being  already  in  the  hands  of  the 
Christians,  they  were  enabled  to  apply  themselves  more 
to  trade.  No  massacres  or  popular  outbreaks  against 
them  took  place  in  that  country. 

All  this  becomes  more  comprehensible  if  we  note 
that  not  a  single  word  of  pity  or  sign  of  reprobation  is  to 
be  found  in  the  writings  of  the  historians  who  lived  in  the 
period  when  these  outrages  were  committed.  Ecclesias- 
tical chroniclers  frequently  testify  approval  of  them ;  the 
monk  of  Waverley,  for  example,  relates  in  triumphant  tones 
the  massacre  in  London  on  the  occasion  of  Eichard  I.'s  coro- 
nation, which  took  place  without  the  slightest  provocation 
upon  the  part  of  the  Jews,  and  he  concludes  with  the 
exclamation :  '  Praise  be  to  God,  who  hath  taken  ven- 
geance upon  the  ungodly'  ('  Annales  Monast.'  p.  246). 
The  chroniclers  do  not  fail,  however,  to  observe,  that 
avarice  had  been  the  principal  motive  for  such  misdeeds, 
and  that  the  outcry  against  the  Jews  had  been  raised  by 
nobles  and  citizens  for  the  sake  of  getting  rid  at  a  blow  of 
their  Jewish  creditors.  Money  in  those  days  was  indeed 
both  the  guardian  angel  and  the  avenging  angel  of  the 
Jews ;  the  wretched  people  were  compelled  to  prosecute 
their  debtors,  in  constant  expectation  that  the  next  moment 
they  would  be  prosecuted  themselves. 

Since  the  clergy  had  pronounced  the  very  existence  of 


234  THE  JEWS  IN  EUKOPE  ix 

the  Jews  amongst  the  Christians  to  be  an  immense  danger 
requiring  the  greatest  vigilance  and  careful  surveillance 
and  segregation,  it  might  be  expected  that  the  church 
would  use  every  endeavour  to  induce  the  conversion  of  the 
Jews  by  persuasion.  But  nothing  of  the  kind  took  place. 
There  was  an  entire  lack  of  men  capable  of  undertaking 
such  a  work  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury ;  and  even  after  the  rise  of  the  mendicant  orders,  to 
whom  missionary  work  amongst  the  Jews  was  committed 
as  part  of  their  calling,  a  theologian  was  seldom  to  be 
found  who  could  pretend  to  the  amount  of  education  indis- 
pensable for  such  an  enterprise.  A  commentary  upon  the 
prophetic  books,  calculated  to  make  an  impression  upon 
educated  Jews,  was  beyond  the  powers  of  that  time.  The 
great  stream  of  allegorical  meanings  which  overspread  the 
Biblical  literature  of  the  Christians  appeared  to  the  Hebrew 
expositors  like  a  foolish  play  upon  words  produced  by  an 
arbitrary  and  undisciplined  imagination. 

The  early  church  had  stood  altogether  nearer  to  the 
people  of  the  Old  Testament  and  their  faith ;  the  great 
changes  and  transformations  of  the  middle  ages  had  im- 
measurably widened  the  breach.  The  adoration  of  images, 
which  according  to  Jewish  conceptions  was  contrary  to  the 
decalogue  ;  the  entire  system  of  authority  and  coercion 
introduced  by  Hildebrand ;  the  religious  wars,  with  the 
system  of  indulgences — were  things  which  rendered  the 
conversion  of  a  Jew,  from  inward  motives  of  conviction, 
next  to  impossible.  The  pictorial  representation  of  the 
Trinity,  which  became  the  fashion  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
middle  ages,  necessarily  appeared  to  the  Jew  like  a  confir- 
mation of  the  Tritheism  with  which  he  reproached  the 
Christian.  In  many  places  the  Jews  were  compelled  to 
listen  to  controversial  sermons  from  monks  whose  prac- 
tice was  the  direct  contrary  of  what  they  preached.  It  is 
related  of  the  preaching  friar  Vincent  Ferrer  that  his 
eloquence  effected  30,000  conversions  in  Spain.  But  the 
supposed  conversions  took  place  in  conjunction  with  the 


THE  JEWS  IN  EUEOPE  235 

terrorism  created  by  the  massacres  of  1391,  and  how  much 
they  were  worth  quickly  showed  itself  as  we  have  said  in 
the  apostasy  of  17,000  of  the  new  converts. 

In  the  event  of  a  Jew  voluntarily  becoming  a  Christian 
he  forfeited  all  the  privileges  that  his  intercourse  with  that 
steadfast  and  faithful  people  had  hitherto  afforded  him, 
without  gaining  in  return  any  favour  from  the  Christians  ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  found  himself  in  many  ways  in  a 
worse  situation  with  regard  to  them  than  he  had  been 
before.  For  the  church  regarded  him  with  suspicion. 
In  Eome  it  was  proverbial  that  a  baptized  Jew  almost 
invariably  fell  into  apostasy.5  If  he  was  wealthy,  it  was 
made  incumbent  upon  him  to  restore  all  the  sums  that  he 
had  received  in  interest,  which  often  exceeded  his  whole 
income ;  and  in  France  it  was  customary  to  confiscate  the 
whole  fortune  of  a  converted  Jew  in  compensation  to  the 
king  or  baron  for  the  loss  he  had  suffered  in  the  person  of 
his  bondman  and  the  income  to  be  drawn  from  him.  Two 
statutes  of  Charles  VII.  did,  indeed,  annul  this  custom  ; 
but  the  same  king  took  from  the  Jews  who  saved  them- 
selves from  exile  by  conversion  two-thirds  of  their  fortune, 
which  contemporaries  regarded  as  a  great  mitigation  of  the 
severity  of  the  old  statutes. 

If  the  Christianised  Jew  happened  to  be  poor,  he  stood 
in  need  of  the  bare  necessaries  of  life ;  for  he  had  learnt 
no  trade,  and  might  no  longer  carry  on  financial  business ; 
nothing  remained  to  him  except,  perhaps,  to  become  a 
hawker  or  pedlar. 

But  worst  of  all  for  the  new  convert  was  the  super- 
vision of  the  spiritual  tribunals  under  which  he  found 
himself.  Wherever  there  was  an  inquisitor  the  merest  sus- 
picion sufficed  as  the  signal  for  him  to  be  seized,  tortured, 
and  condemned  to  a  fine  or  imprisonment.  As  early  as 
1330  the  canonists  had  given  out  that  the  inquisitor  was 
justified  in  imposing  a  fine  upon  mere  suspicion,  and  cer- 
tainly nothing  was  easier  and  more  enticing  than  to  find 

*  Petra,  Comment,  in  constitutioncs  apost.  iii.  261  (Venet.  1720). 


236  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  « 

out  grounds  for  suspicion  against  a  rich  Jew,  whether  bap- 
tized or  unbaptized. 

Whilst  the  Spaniards  were  striving  to  rid  the  Peninsula 
of  the  Jews,  they  were  preparing  for  themselves  the  most 
terrible  scourge,  and  were  destined  for  centuries  to  bleed 
under  its  stripes.  For,  when  they  compelled  so  many 
Jews  to  enter  the  church,  and  under  fear  of  death  to  live  a 
life  of  hypocrisy,  they  introduced  into  Spain  the  institu- 
tion of  the  Holy  Office,  of  which  the  immediate  intention 
was  the  correction  of  secret  Judaism.  Most  educated 
Spaniards  in  these  days  perceive  in  the  Inquisition  the 
greatest  national  misfortune,  an  institution  which  inflicted 
a  stain  upon  the  Spanish  name,  and  became  a  source  of 
misery  to  the  Spanish  people,  besides  being  a  school  of 
hypocrisy.  That  the  institution  maintained  itself  in  the 
country  for  so  long  a  period,  and  for  more  than  two  hun- 
dred years  continued  to  find  victims  for  its  '  acts  of 
faith,'  the  events  of  1328,  1391,  and  1492  must  be  held  to 
be  responsible,  combined  with  the  distinction  between 
absolute  and  relative  compulsion  in  baptism  which  the 
church  had  created. 

Many  thousands  of  Jews  were  at  that  time  forcibly 
baptized  ;  they  were  left  no  choice  but  death  or  baptism. 
In  many  instances  they  preferred  the  former,  and  died  by 
suicide  or  under  the  hands  of  their  oppressors ;  the  example 
of  a  few  carried  away  whole  multitudes  after  them.  At 
the  same  time  very  considerable  numbers  were  driven  by 
the  fear  of  death  or  banishment  or  loss  of  property  into 
accepting  baptism,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  the 
moment  that  they  could  breathe  more  freely  they  should 
renounce  Christianity  and  return  to  the  religion  of  their 
fathers. 

Certainly  it  had  always  been  taught  and  received  among 
the  tenets  of  the  church  that  baptism  administered  by  force 
was  null  and  void  ;  and  as  a  matter  of  course  it  would  seem 
that  the  recipient  would  be  free  to  return  to  the  worship  of 
his  fathers,  But  even  so  early  as  633  the  Yisigothic  bishops 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  237 

in  Spain  had  declared  that  the  compulsorily  baptized  must  be 
kept  steadfast  in  the  church.  This  proposition  found  its  way 
into  Gratian's  book  of  doctrine  and  law,  and  henceforth  no 
one  who  had  been  once  baptized  was  allowed  to  abjure 
Christianity  and  return  to  Jewish  worship.  Once  a  Chris- 
tian, he  came  as  such  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  tribunal 
of  faith  ;  if  he  recanted  he  suffered  death  at  the  stake 
like  all  apostates  and  heretics.  Where  no  tribunal  of  the 
Inquisition  was  at  hand,  the  princes  were  always  ready 
to  carry  out  the  penalty.  The  Emperor  Frederick  III. 
possessed  a  valuable  servant  in  a  young  man  who  from 
fear  of  death  had  allowed  himself  to  be  baptized.  When 
he  recanted  he  was  condemned  by  the  emperor  to  be 
burnt,  and  went  to  the  stake  singing  psalms.  In  Spain 
and  Portugal  news  that  some  Jewish  rite  had  been  per- 
formed amongst  the  new  converts  was  sufficient  to  con- 
demn them  to  imprisonment  and  the  rack.  No  heed  was 
given  to  the  fact  that  in  this  way  the  church  was  filled  with 
hypocrites,  and  the  profanation  of  sacred  things,  otherwise 
so  strictly  guarded,  made  inevitable.  In  her  better  times 
the  church  had  regarded  entrance  into  her  fold  enforced  by 
the  fear  of  death  and  torments  as  a  disgrace  and  an  out- 
rage ;  but  now  bishops,  priests,  and  laymen  all  worked 
together  in  branding  the  church  with  this  infamy.  This 
was  especially  the  case  in  Spain. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  imagine  a  more  painful  exist- 
ence than  that  of  a  Jew  in  the  middle  ages ;  and  had  he 
possessed  historical  knowledge,  with  what  longing  might 
he  not  have  looked  back  to  the  happier  times  of  the  Eoman 
Empire  !  A  Jew  in  the  middle  ages  lived  in  daily  expecta- 
tion of  being  mulcted  of  the  whole  or  part  of  his  possessions 
and  of  being  thrown  into  prison  or  exiled.  Emigration  was 
often  impossible,  permission  to  leave  the  country  being 
refused  so  long  as  anything  could  be  extorted  from  him. 
And  even  if  it  were  granted  the  situation  was  hardly  im- 
proved ;  it  was  generally  a  change  from  bad  to  worse, 
for  permission  to  settle  for  even  a  few  years  in  another 


238  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  .ix 

district  had  to  be  purchased  at  a  ruinous  price.  The 
public  roads  of  a  country  were  for  him  as  unsafe  as  for  an 
outlaw. 

Thus  during  nearly  a  thousand  years  the  outward 
history  of  the  Jews  is  a  concatenation  of  refined  oppres- 
sion, of  degrading  and  demoralising  torture,  of  coercion 
and  persecution,  of  wholesale  massacre,  and  of  alternate 
banishment  and  recall.  European  nations  seem  to  have 
emulated  one  another  in  seeking  to  verify  the  delusion  that 
to  the  end  of  time  the  Jews  were  destined  by  the  counsels 
of  Heaven  to  endure  the  fate  of  Helots,  and  that  the  sons 
of  the  Gentiles  were  called  upon  to  act  the'part  of  gaolers  and 
executioners  towards  God's  chosen  people.  They  were  felt 
to  be  indispensable,  they  were  found  useful  in  many  ways, 
and  yet  none  would  tolerate  them.  The  very  sight  of  them 
was  an  irritation  to  the  assured  believer,  to  whom  the  per- 
sistence of  the  Jew  in  the  creed  of  his  fathers  against 
the  light  of  the  Gospel  seemed  to  proceed  from  malicious 
obduracy. 

Yet  as  we  turn  over  the  tremendous  mass  of  castigatory 
preaching,  of  denunciatory  and  hostile  declamation  against 
the  detested  race,  with  which  the  church  literature  of  that 
period  teems,  amongst  all  its  phraseology,  stereotyped 
by  repetition,  one  remarkable  feature  strikes  us.  So  far 
as  family  life,  purity,  temperance,  faith  in  contracts  is 
concerned,  their  morality  was  unimpeachable.  Besides  the 
reproach  of  avarice  and  of  usury,  it  is  only  their  religious  ob- 
servances which  furnish  grounds  for  accusation — blasphemy 
is  the  constant  cry  against  them,  for  which  it  was  sufficient 
that  they  ignored  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  the 
Incarnation.  Doubtless  it  seldom  really  occurred  that 
Christ  and  His  Mother  were  insulted  within  Christian 
hearing,  for  too  well  they  knew  that  a  word  of  the  kind 
might  condemn  them  and  even  their  whole  family  to  death. 
To  seek  to  turn  a  Christian  to  his  faith  would  hardly  enter 
into  the  mind  of  the  Hebrew.  The  Talmud  taught  that 
proselytes  were  as  injurious  to  Judaism  as  ulcers  to  a 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  239 

healthy  body.  If  a  Gentile  was  really  determined  to 
come  over,  the  following  discourse  must  be  held  to  him : 
'  Canst  thou  then  be  ignorant  that  the  life  of  a  Jew  is  one 
of  torment  and  oppression,  of  insult  and  expulsion,  of 
torture  and  martyrdom  ? '  He  was  put  in  mind  at  the  same 
time  of  the  burdensomeness  of  the  laws  and  of  the  pre- 
scribed privations  and  sacrifices. 

1  The  Christian  has  made  the  Jew  what  he  is,'  cries 
the  history  of  thirteen  centuries  to  us  with  a  thousand 
tongues.  When  the  Jews  in  Spain  were  to  be  uprooted 
and  expelled,  a  Eabbi  is  reported  to  have  said  to  the 
Christians,  '  We  are  a  blessed  and  an  accursed  race  at  the 
same  time.  You  Christians  now  seek  to  exterminate  us, 
but  you  will  not  succeed,  for  we  are  blessed ;  the  time  will 
come  when  you  will  endeavour  to  raise  us  up,  but  neither 
in  that  will  you  succeed,  for  we  are  accursed.' G 

If  these  words  were  really  uttered  it  is  nevertheless 
uncertain  whether  the  Kabbi  referred  only  to  the  Spanish 
Jews — the  Sephardim — or  whether  he  supposed  the  whole 
people  to  be  included  in  the  curse.  A  backward  glance  over 
nine  centuries  of  disgrace  and  misery  might  well  have  given 
rise  to  such  a  thought.  However,  since  the  [Reformation  the 
lot  of  the  Jews  has  steadily  improved,  and  no  Eabbi  of  the 
present  day  could  well  feel  a  curse  to  be  resting  upon 
his  race. 

The  number  of  the  Jews  throughout  the  world  at  present 
has  been  approximately  calculated  at  twelve  millions  ; 
should  this  be  an  exaggeration,  it  is  yet  certain  that  the 
number  far  exceeds  that  which  was  ever  attained  in  ancient 
times,  even  at  the  period  of  political  independence.  The 
authoritative  interpretation  of  prophecy  in  the  middle  ages, 
that  this  people  was  destined  by  persistent  ill-treatment 
and  persecution  to  be  reduced  to  an  insignificant  remnant, 
has  been  disproved.  Despite  all  the  crushing  blows  struck 
on  this  anvil,  despite  numberless  defections  to  Christianity 
and  Islam,  they  have  not  decreased,  but  on  the  contrary 

G  Heinr.  Thiersch,  Uebcr  den  Christlichen  Staat,  s.  G9  (Basel,  1875). 


240  THE  JEWS  IN   EUROPE  ix 

continually  increased  in  number.  For  hundreds  of  years 
Israel  has  striven  after  and  finally  succeeded  in  obtaining 
equal  rights  of  citizenship  in  almost  all  the  countries  of 
Europe.  Kussia,  Spain,  and  Portugal  still  withhold  them. 
They  are  wanting  also  in  the  Mohammedan  world.  In  Europe 
the  Jews  in  general  are  in  possession  of  all  social  and  poli- 
tical rights.  They  sit  in  Parliaments  and  in  Chambers,  are 
admitted  at  most  of  the  universities  as  teachers,  and  the 
numbers  who  flock  to  them  for  instruction  yearly  increase ; 
posts  of  trust  are  already  confided  to  them.  Their  skilfully 
organised  society,  the  Israelitish  Alliance,  which  holds  its 
sittings  [in  Paris,  seems  to  be  constantly  gaining  influence. 
The  evidence  of  comparative  statistics  is  favourable  to  them. 
In  most  states  they  furnish  relatively  the  smallest  number  of 
crimes  dealt  with  by  the  amenable  law,  and  in  point  of  pro- 
sperity, riches,  and  even  longevity  and  increasing  numbers, 
they  hold  the  foremost  place  among  the  population.  The 
old  virtues  of  moderation  and  temperance,  of  orderly  and 
affectionate  family  life,  of  respect  from  children  for  their 
parents,  which  so  greatly  contributed  to  preserve  this 
people  from  destruction  during  the  troublesome  times  of 
the  middle  ages,  have  not  yet  lost  their  hold.  Family 
alliances  with  Christians  and  conversions  to  Christianity 
have  become  more  frequent  ;  in  Berlin  alone  2,000  pros- 
elytes were  reckoned  a  few  years  ago. 

This  bright  picture,  however,  has  certainly  some  gloomy 
shadows.  The  better  spokesmen  of  the  people  do  not  deny 
their  grievous  faults  ;  they  are  forced  to  admit  that  there  is 
abundant  material  for  severe  blame  ;  they  only  contend  that 
the  faults  lie  more  upon  the  surface  than  the  good  qualities. 
The  heaviest  accusations,  the  principal  motives  of  the 
popular  hatred  against  them,  turn  upon  the  economic  in- 
juries caused  by  wringing  profits  out  of  the  peasantry  in  the 
Slavonic,  and  even  in  some  of  the  German  countries,  through 
the  still  favourite  occupation  of  bartering  and  usury.  Fur- 
ther eastwards,  in  Galicia  especially,  these  injuries  are 
defined  in  still  stronger  terms  ;  they  are  said  to  amount  to 


ix  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  241 

absolute  ruin  for  the  peasantry.  The  guilt  is  undeniable 
— our  Jewish  fellow-citizens  lament  it  as  we  do  ourselves  ; 
but  it  would  be  unjust  to  make  them  bear  the  responsibi- 
lity for  a  remote  part  of  their  community  with  whom  they 
are  not  even  in  communication.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
the  bubble  companies  and  mischievous  gambling  in  stocks, 
in  which  the  Christians  are  quite  as  much  to  blame  as  the 
Jews.  If  of  old  alchemists,  astrologers,  and  diggers  for 
hidden  treasure  took  advantage  of  the  blind  credulity  of  the 
upper  classes,  Jews  and  others  are  doing  the  same  to-day 
with  their  speculations.  Christian  editors,  again,  must 
share  with  Jewish  editors  the  sins  of  the  daily  press,  when 
they  do  not  enlighten  public  opinion,  or  attempt  to  remove 
prejudices,  but  pander  to  them. 

The  great  internal  movement  of  reform  begun  by 
Mendelssohn  amongst  the  Jews  has  transformed  them  as 
a  body  in  Germany,  France,  and  England.  Whilst  the 
portion  of  the  nation  inhabiting  the  Slavonic  countries  has 
remained  almost  untouched,  and  still  clings  to  the  precepts 
of  the  Talmud,  the  Jews  of  Western  Europe  have  cast  aside 
many  of  their  prejudices  and  customs,  and  conformed  in  a 
great  degree  to  Christian  views  and  habits. 

Germany  is  at  the  present  day  the  centre  and  foster- 
father  of  the  intellectual  life  of  Judaism,  just  as  Spain, 
Northern  and  Southern  France,  and  Holland,  formerly  were 
in  turn.  German  Jews  influence  the  rest  of  the  world 
through  the  tongue  which  they  speak  ;  the  German  Jews 
alone  possess  a  religious  and  theological  literature  of  their 
own,  from  which  instruction  flows  to  their  brethren  in  other 
lands.  It  may  indeed  be  said  with  truth  that  German 
thought  and  German  philosophy  exercise  the  strongest 
influence  amongst  even  the  distant  Jews  of  North  America. 

In  civilised  nations,  whose  intellectual  culture  has  its 
peculiar  characteristics,  the  Jew  of  the  country  shares  the 
same  views  as  the  mass  of  the  nation.  The  German  Jew 
takes  an  essentially  German  view  of  all  questions  of  intel- 
lectual and  social  life,  which  a  century  ago  was  certainly 

R 


242  THE  JEWS  IN  EUROPE  ix 

not  the  case  ;  and  since  the  culture  and  civilisation  of  our 
time  have  grown  out  of  Christianity  and  have  taken  a 
Christian  colouring,  he  cannot,  however  averse  he  may 
otherwise  be  to  Christianity,  avoid,  wittingly  or  unwittingly, 
thinking  and  acting  in  many  ways  upon  the  lines  of  Chris- 
tianity. Marriage,  for  instance,  is  no  longer  considered 
and  treated  amongst  the  Jews  from  the  Eastern  and  Old 
Testament  standpoint,  but  from  that  of  the  Christian  and 
German.  It  is  not  otherwise  with  the  British  and  French 
Jew ;  he  thinks  and  feels  in  unison  with  the  great  nation 
in  the  midst  of  which  he  lives. 

The  false  and  repulsive  precept  that  mankind  is  per- 
petually called  upon  to  avenge  the  sins  and  errors  of  the 
forefathers  upon  the  innocent  descendants,  has  ruled  the 
world  far  too  long,  and  has'blotted  the  countries  of  Europe 
with  shameful  and  abominable  deeds,  from  which  we  turn 
away  in  horror.  Woe  to  us  and  to  our  children  if  ever  the 
precept  of  retaliation  should  come  to  be  applied  to  the 
descendants  of  the  Germans,  French,  Spaniards,  and  Eng- 
lish of  the  middle  ages  !  There  is  one  thing  which  the 
movers  in  the  so-called  anti-Semitic  agitation  of  to-day 
should  never  forget,  viz.,  that  hatred  and  contempt  are 
feelings  sad  and  unprofitable  for  those  who  nourish  them, 
torturing  and  embittering  to  the  objects  of  them.  Sad  it 
is  when,  to  use  a  Scriptural  phrase,  *  one  deep  calleth 
another.'  Let  our  motto  ever  continue  to  be  the  saying  of 
the  Antigone  of  Sophocles  : 

Kindness,  not  hatred,  am  I  here  to  match. 


-    .. 


243 


X 

UPON    THE    POLITICAL    AND    INTELLECTUAL 
DEVELOPMENT    OF    SPAIN1 

IN  seeking  to  direct  the  attention  of  this  assembly  to  the 
past  history  of  Spain,  I  am  principally  impelled  by  an 
obvious  motive,  viz.,  that  no  one  can  form  a  correct  opinion 
upon  the  present  condition  and  life  of  a  nation,  who  has 
not  studied  and  comprehended  the  history  of  that  nation  in 
the  past.  I  am  also  prompted  by  the  perception  that 
Germans  above  all  people,  when  brought  into  contact  with 
Spain  and  the  Spaniards,  show  a  marked  predilection  for 
them,  often  amounting  to  admiration,  and  readily  extol  the 
attractive  qualities  of  a  people  still  vigorous  and  noble- 
minded  in  spite  of  its  errors.  Besides,  it  is  only  by  the  help 
of  history  that  a  solution  can  be  found  for  the  enigma  that 
the  Spaniards,  averse  to  all  innovations  and  revolutionary 
movements,  and  clinging  tenaciously  to  all  that  is  old  and 
traditional,  have  nevertheless  made  or  suffered  more  revo- 
lutions during  the  last  century  than  even  the  excitable 
French. 

A  single  disastrous  battle  sufficed  to  destroy  the  Gothic 
Kingdom.  Whilst  pagan  Spain  had  not  succumbed  to  the 
Romans  till  after  a  struggle  of  two  centuries,  the  Christian 
kingdom  yielded  at  a  single  blow  before  the  first  shock  of 
the  Moslem  armies.  They  swept  over  the  Peninsula  as  far 
as  the  Pyrenees,  and  penetrated  even  into  France,  in  a 
tide  of  conquest  which  nothing  could  stop.  Spain  first 
became  a  province  under  the  sway  of  the  Kaliph  of 

1  Address  delivered  at  the  festal  meeting  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at 
Munich,  July  25,  1884. 

K  2 


'244  UPON  THE  POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

Damascus,  but  afterwards  rose  to  be  an  independent 
kaliphate,  which  was  soon  parted  into  separate  kingdoms, 
A  state  of  anarchy  supervened ;  the  Mohammedans  were 
constantly  at  feud  with  each  other.  The  power  of  the  Cres- 
cent declined.  Meanwhile,  in  the  Cantabrian  and  Asturian 
mountains  Christian  principalities  had  been  formed.  The 
scattered  descendants  of  the  Goths,  combined  with  the  native 
mountaineers  of  those  regions  who  had  maintained  their 
independence,  now  broke  from  their  fastnesses  and,  inured 
to  hardship  and  poverty,  and  strong  in  religious  faith, 
pressed  resolutely  forward,  seizing  upon  new  territories. 
Thus  began  seven  centuries  of  continual  warfare  and  re- 
conquest,  which,  being  as  much  a  conflict  of  races  as  a  war 
of  religion,  has  left  an  indelible  mark  upon  the  Spanish 
people. 

The  mass  of  the  Christian  population  of  the  Peninsula, 
the  Mosarabians,  learned  indeed  after  a  century  to  endure 
with  patience  the  indulgent  rule  of  the  Moors,  but  they 
remained  distinct  in  language  and  customs,  as  they  already 
were  by  religion  and  descent.  Conversions  seldom  took 
place  from  one  side  to  the  other ;  a  real  community  of 
interests  between  conquerors  and  conquered  could  not  arise 
even  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances,  and  was 
impossible  with  a  people  whose  manner  of  life  and  moral 
views  were  regulated  by  the  Koran.  Still  it  was  inevitable 
that,  after  living  so  long  together,  some  features  of  Moorish 
habits  and  sentiments  should  be  transmitted  to  the  con- 
quered race,  the  echo  of  which  reaches  us  through  the  rich 
treasures  of  Spanish  romance. 

The  origin  of  the  little  Christian  kingdom  in  the  Asturias 
is  wrapped  in  obscurity ;  its  founder,  Pelayo,  only  lives  as 
the  hero  of  the  ballad  in  which  his  praises  are  sung ;  but 
about  the  year  765  we  find  the  kingdom  comprising  the  pre- 
sent provinces  of  Navarre,  Biscay  and  Asturias,  part  of 
Castile,  Leon,  and  Galicia. 

The  rule  of  the  Franks  was  soon  afterwards  established 
in  the  Spanish  Marches. 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  245 

In  the  eleventh  century  the  advance  of  the  Christians 
towards  the  south  became  more  rapid,  and  the  resistance 
of  the  Moors,  who  were  divided  by  internal  quarrels,  weaker. 
The  three  Christian  kingdoms,  of  Leon  with  Castile,  Aragon, 
and  the  County  of  Barcelona  (Catalonia) ,  already  comprised 
the  whole  of  Northern  and  a  portion  of  Central  Spain. 
When  the  time  of  the  Crusades  came,  and  Europe  was  pene- 
trated with  the  idea  that  war  with  the  infidel  was  as  neces- 
sary as  it  was  serviceable  and  salutary  both  for  this  life  and 
the  next,  the  Spaniards,  after  long  seclusion,  awoke  to  a 
strong  consciousness  of  their  fellowship  with  other  Christian 
nations  and  their  superiority  amongst  them.  If  to  other 
nations  warfare  with  the  unbeliever  was  the  temporary 
business  of  individuals,  to  the  Spaniards  it  became  a  life- 
long vocation  in  which  the  entire  nation  had  its  share. 
In  this  way  a  fundamental  trait  of  the  Spanish  character 
was  developed — that  national  loftiness  of  mind  which  led 
each  one  to  feel  that  he  belonged  to  a  race  called  to  be  the 
champion  of  the  Christian  world.  It  was  their  habit  to 
look  back  upon  a  line  of  ancestors  each  one  of  whom  had 
striven  for  the  faith  and  won  a  share  in  Paradise ;  to  which 
their  grandsons  following  in  the  same  path  could  not  fail  to 
attain.  Trust  in  their  own  capacity,  patient  endurance 
and  confidence  under  misfortune,  tenacity  of  purpose  and 
unrelaxing  effort  for  this  one  object,  stubborn  adherence  to 
inherited  customs,  traditions,  and  fables,  and  above  all 
fervent  zeal  in  the  faith,  such  were  the  natural  characteris- 
tics of  this  people.  They  did  not  prevent  the  various  races 
of  the  Peninsula  from  being  and  continuing  to  be  more 
sharply  distinguished  from  one  another  in  their  peculiarities 
than  was  the  case  in  other  kingdoms.  In  reality,  excepting 
religion,  the  contest  with  the  Saracens  was  the  only  com- 
mon motive  that  stirred  them.  This  contest  they  every- 
where carried  on  with  the  same  weapons,  the  same  contri- 
vances and  artifices,  whilst  the  three  semi-religious  orders 
of  knighthood  of  Alcantara,  Calatrava,  and  Santiago  im- 
posed the  necessary  restraint  upon  the  guerilla  warfare  of 


246  UPON  THE  POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

the  masses,  gave  the  necessary  firmness  of  organisation  to 
the  whole  military  system,  and,  acting  as  its  legitimate  up- 
holders, preserved  and  continued  the  martial  traditions  of 
the  land.  So  Spain  became  the  great  battlefield  upon 
which  East  and  West,  Mohammed  and  Christ,  the  Koran 
and  the  Bible,  measured  their  strength.  If  the  Moslems, 
although  sometimes  oppressed  and  reduced  to  bondage,  from 
time  to  time  gained  fresh  strength  by  the  arrival  of  fanatical 
zealots  from  Africa,  the  knightly  and  warlike  ardour  of  the 
time,  and  the  hope  of  rich  booty  in  land  and  goods,  drew  the 
French  nobility  over  the  Pyrenees  to  reinforce  the  Christian 
armies ;  and  to  this  brotherhood  in  arms  the  Spaniards 
owed,  amongst  others,  the  brilliant  victory  of  Navas  de 
Tolosa.  But  of  the  Spaniards  themselves  it  has  been  truly 
said  that  they  were  the  first  and  the  last  Crusaders  both 
in  practice  and  in  theory.  We  may  gather  what  this  meant 
from  a  story  told  in  one  of  the  Spanish  chronicles,  to  the 
effect  that  kings,  barons,  and  knights  alike  used  during  the 
height  of  the  war  with  the  Moors  to  keep  their  horses  in 
their  bedrooms,  in  order,  when  the  alarm  sounded,  to  be 
able  to  mount  instantly.  Even  in  our  own  days  Martinez 
de  la  Eosa  has  gone  so  far  as  to  say :  '  Our  fathers,  roughly 
and  hardily  educated,  always  in  harness  and  with  sword  in 
hand,  for  eight  centuries  did  not  sleep  securely  for  a  single 
night.' 

We  must  now  consider  a  curious  characteristic  of 
Spanish  history.  It  might  be  thought  that  the  annals  of 
a  people  engaged  in  ceaseless  combat  with  a  superior  foe, 
in  unwearying  self-assertion,  and  constant  advance  to- 
wards better  political  and  ecclesiastical  conditions,  would 
afford  rich  and  suitable  materials  for  traditions  which 
would  be  as  beacons  throwing  light  upon  the  path  of  the 
nation,  and  would  serve  as  a  means  of  education  and  disci- 
pline in  the  ways  of  patriotism.  Yet  it  has  happened  other- 
wise ;  history,  true  or  fanciful,  became  a  magistra  vita  in 
Spain,  but  too  often  a  perverted  and  perverting  instructress. 

The  history  of  no  other  nation  has  been  confused  and 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  24? 

disfigured  to  such  a  degree  by  coarse  and  palpable  false- 
hoods, by  arbitrary  fictions,  by  fantastic  adornment,  as  that 
of  Spain ;  nowhere  has  the  practice  of  falsifying  facts  and 
of  spreading  fables  known  to  be  such  been  so  methodically 
and  persistently  followed.  Consequently  the  difficulties 
which  this  history  presented  to  the  inquirer  were  formerly 
so  great  as  to  be  scarcely  surmountable.  It  is  a  history 
which  has  only  been  recognised  and  understood  during  the 
last  thirty  or  forty  years,  and  even  yet  important  parts 
of  it  remain  too  obscure  for  explanation.  The  early  chroni- 
cles, down  to  the  thirteenth  century,  were  so  scanty,  colour- 
less, and  insufficient,  that  fancy,  nourished  by  national 
pride,  found  free  scope  for  fabulous  additions.  When  King 
Ferdinand  I.  of  Castile  (c.  A.D.  1063)  is  made  by  the 
chronicle  to  march  with  a  Spanish  army  to  Paris,  where  he 
subdues  all  the  nations  and  powers  in  league  against  him, 
and  compels  the  German  Emperor  humbly  to  do  homage 
and  pay  tribute  to  him,  the  invention,  for  which  there  is  not 
the  slightest  foundation,  shows  the  arrogance  of  the  people 
whose  king  in  the  seventeenth  century  could  still  say  to 
his  followers :  Nos  contra  todos,  y  todos  contra  nos,  a  saying 
which  even  at  that  time  had  to  be  somewhat  modified  by 
another :  Con  todo  el  mundo  guerra  y  paz  con  Inglaterra. 
(War  with  all  the  world  but  peace  with  England.) 

Nowhere  but  on  Spanish  soil  could  a  freebooter,  faithless 
and  cruel,  although  heroically  brave,  who  fought  alternately 
with  his  own  people  against  the  Moors  and  with  the  Moors 
against  his  own  people,  have  been  extolled  and  idealised  in 
ballad  and  poem,  and  honoured  as  the  flower  of  the  Christian 
knighthood  of  Spain  and  as  the  ancestor  of  her  kings ;  only 
in  that  land  was  it  possible  that  Eodrigo  Buy  Diaz,  the 
Campeador  or  Cid,  should  be  transformed  into  a  national 
hero,  such  as  no  other  civilised  people  could  show,  a  hero  in 
whom  the  nation  complacently  saw  and  admired  its  own 
reflection.  Certainly  it  cannot  be  denied  that  in  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries  the  Spanish  people  only  too 
truly  resembled  the  genuine  historical  Cid.  Nor  was  this 


248  UPON  THE  POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

enough ;  clergy  and  people  turned  him  into  a  saint,  who 
worked  miraculous  cures  after  his  death,  and  whose  canon- 
isation Philip  II.  demanded  in  all  seriousness  from  Eome. 

In  like  fashion  a  Kingdom  of  Sobrarbe  was  invented 
which  never  existed ;  and  Kings  of  Sobrarbe  created  who 
had  never  lived ;  all  for  the  sake  of  adding  to  the  splendour 
of  Aragon  in  the  olden  times.  The  Spanish  provinces  have 
rivalled  one  another  in  tricking  out  their  early  history  in  the 
garb  of  fancy,  borrowed,  not  even  from  the  popular  poetical 
ballads,  but  from  the  inventions  of  local  patriotism,  so  that 
the  Spanish  annals  are  full  of  assertions  of  which  the  false- 
hood is  patent,  but  which  are  allowed  to  remain  as  a  valu- 
able legacy  only  for  lack  of  courage  to  discard  them. 

Still  wider  and  greater  influence  was  exercised  in  Spain 
by  religious  myths,  originating  not  in  the  poetical  fancy  of 
the  people,  but  in  deliberate  invention  on  the  part  of  the 
hierarchy.  That  the  Apostle  James  the  elder  came  to  Spain 
to  preach  the  gospel,  is  indeed  contrary  both  to  the  Bible 
and  to  history ;  but  in  Spain  ever  since  the  tenth  century 
it  has  been  received  as  an  unassailable  fact ;  he  is  the  patron 
saint  of  the  country,  and  every  Spaniard  to  this  day  main- 
tains it  in  the  face  of  the  world.  Santiago,  the  Apostle, 
the  fisherman,  has  become  the  knight  and  leader  of  battles  ; 
in  thirty- eight  combats  he  has  been  seen  mounted  upon 
his  white  charger  putting  the  terrified  foe  to  flight.  The 
legend  that  his  corpse,  floating  from  Palestine  round  the 
whole  of  Spain,  was  brought  to  land,  and  preserved  upon 
the  Galician  coast,  is  a  somewhat  later  invention.  Com- 
postella,  however,  became  for  some  centuries  the  most  fre- 
quented place  of  pilgrimage  in  the  West,  and  apocryphal 
literature  was  enriched  by  the  book  composed  in  recom- 
mendation of  this  pilgrimage  by  the  Pseudo-Turpin  as  well 
as  by  the  writings  of  Calixtus  II. 

Everywhere  in  the  middle  ages  forgeries  and  inventions 
of  records  and  facts  were  intimately  connected  with  hierar- 
chical pretensions,  but  nowhere  was  this  the  case  to  so  great 
a  degree  as  in  Spain,  We  might  name  a  long  series  of 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  249 

chronicles  and  other  documents,  either  entirely  fictitious  or 
partly  interpolated  and  falsified,  which  were  prepared  in 
the  interests  of  the  church,  either  for  the  sake  of  confirm- 
ing or  extending  the  papal  power,  or  for  the  benefit  of  some 
bishopric  or  monastery. 

A  living  historian  of  the  Spanish  Church,  Vicente  de  la 
Fuente,  in  spite  of  his  genuine  Spanish  orthodoxy,2  says, 
when  speaking  of  the  eleventh  century,  '  We  float  in  a  sea 
of  fables.'  The  pernicious  practice  was  carried  on  a  couple 
of  hundred  years  longer.  The  Spanish  mind  was  thereby 
filled  with  delusive  images,  and  every  Spaniard  bred  up  in 
a  credulity  which  laid  him  open  to  any  deception  that  flat- 
tered his  national  pride  and  nourished  his  prejudices.  The 
consequence  was  that  in  decisive  moments  he  relied  upon 
supernatural  help  more  readily  than  upon  the  exertion  of 
his  own  powers.  A  readiness  and  even  a  willingness  to  be 
deceived  has  frequently  been  noted  as  a  prominent  charac- 
teristic of  this  people,  and  I  must  confess  that  in  reading 
Cervantes  I  have  often  felt  a  suspicion  that  the  poet  desired 
to  portray  this  feature  of  the  popular  character  in  his  de- 
scription of  the  hero  and  his  squire. 

Even  in  the  Augustan  period  of  Spain,  in  the  time  of 
Cervantes  and  Antonio  Agustin,  that  is  to  say  in  1594,  the 
whole  nation,  with  its  high  schools,  its  colleges,  and  hosts  of 
famous  theologians,  was  the  victim  of  a  forgery — a  forgery 
so  comprehensive  and  enormous  that  its  parallel  is  not  to 
be  found  either  in  ancient  or  modern  times— contrived  by 
Jesuits  simultaneously  in  Granada  and  Toledo.  Eamon 
de  la  Higuera  was  the  chief  originator  of  this  imposture, 
which  was  cleverly  calculated  to  entrap  the  national  vanity 
and  the  national  ignorance — an  imposture  which  would  even 
in  those  days  have  been  impossible  in  any  other  civilised 
country,  and  which  could  only  have  succeeded  amongst  a 
people  already  nurtured  upon  falsehoods  and  blinded  with 
national  pride  and  religious  fanaticism.  Inscribed  leaden 
tablets  which,  as  had  been  arranged,  were  to  be  dug  up  ii\ 
?  ftftforM  eclesidttica  $e  Espafia  (Madrid,  ^873),  iv,  1.Q5, 


250  UPON  THE  POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

Granada,  and  some  fabulous  historical  books  prepared  by 
the  Jesuits,  were  to  gratify  a  longing  wish  of  the  Spaniards 
by  suppling  the  hitherto  missing  tradition  and  historical 
authentication  for  certain  cherished  popular  beliefs,  more 
especially  for  the  legend  about  St.  James,  and  for  the  apo- 
stolic origin  of  the  doctrine  of  the  immaculate  conception. 
For  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  the  whole  of  Spain  from 
the  king  to  the  beggar  believed  in  the  genuineness  of  these 
most  transparent  inventions,  the  fraudulency  of  which 
would  have  been  palpable  to  any  fairly  well-educated  man. 
The  Holy  Office  covered  them  with  its  shield.  Hence  not 
a  soul  in  the  Peninsula  dared  to  attack  them.  It  was 
reckoned  a  matter  of  honour  and  an  affair  of  state  to  main- 
tain the  imposture.  Many  volumes  were  filled  with  argu- 
ments in  its  defence ;  lengthy  although  fruitless  negotiations 
were  carried  on  with  Eome  on  the  subject,  and,  as  if  Spain 
had  not  already  had  enough  to  bring  her  scholars  to  shame, 
a  new  production  of  Spanish  fancy  and  excited  religious 
feeling  was  added  about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury— the  revelations  of  a  nun,  Maria  of  Agreda.  This 
work,  in  the  first  instance  a  production  of  the  peculiar 
theology  of  the  Franciscan  order,  was  a  monument  of  the 
grossest  superstition,  amounting  even  to  blasphemy.  But 
the  king  frequently  consulted  this  nun  as  a  divine  oracle, 
and  she  exercised  a  marked  influence  upon  his  political 
decisions.  Her  visions  being  in  complete  harmony  with 
the  cherished  conceptions  of  the  people,  and  sanctioning  the 
previous  frauds,  there  was  not  only  a  great  desire  on  the 
part  of  the  king  to  see  this  monkish  abortion,  *  The  Mystical 
City  of  God,'  incorporated  amongst  the  sacred  writings  of 
the  church,  but  it  was  regarded  as  a  point  of  honour  by 
both  the  nation  and  the  church.  The  whole  influence  of 
Spain  was  brought  to  bear  upon  Eome  to  obtain  the  papal 
ratification  of  these  revelations,  and  the  conclave  found  in 
them  sufficient  matter  to  occupy  them  for  a  century  and 
more.  Even  under  Charles  II.  the  Spanish  ambassador  in 
Paris  was  ordered  to  obtain  from  the  Sorbonne  a  reversal 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  251 

of  its  judgment  condemning  the  book.  After  this,  it  is  not 
astonishing  to  find  that  this  king,  the  last  of  the  Habsburgs, 
feeble  and  epileptic  as  he  was,  should  have  been  declared  by 
his  confessor  and  his  twenty-four  physicians  to  be  possessed, 
and  have  been  for  a  considerable  time  exorcised  repeatedly. 

Let  us  return  to  the  course  of  our  narrative.  By 
the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Castilian  valour  had 
accomplished  deeds  which  left  only  a  shadow  of  Moorish 
rule  remaining  in  the  south  of  Spain.  After  the  victories 
of  Navas  de  Tolosa,  Merida,  and  Xeres  de  la  Guadiana, 
1212-1233,  the  Moorish  capital,  Cordova,  was  taken,  and, 
twelve  years  after  that,  Seville,  the  finest,  richest,  and  most 
populous  town  in  the  Peninsula ;  Medina  Sidonia,  Xeres  de 
la  Frontera,  and  Cadiz  fell  soon  afterwards,  so  that  the 
power  of  Castile  extended  to  the  sea  coast.  It  might  have 
been  expected  with  good  reason  that  Granada,  which  had 
sunk  into  a  small  tributary  town,  would  have  quickly  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  Christians,  and  the  great  work  of  re- 
conquest  have  thus  been  accomplished  before  the  close  of 
the  century.  Certainly,  when  the  Castilians  contrasted  the 
pitiful  issue  of  the  Crusades  in  Palestine  with  their  own 
successful  deeds,  they  might  well  have  been  filled  with 
pride  and  confidence. 

The  question  still  remains  why  it  was  that,  after  such 
mighty  successes  crowning  the  efforts  of  five  centuries,  300 
years  of  hard  fighting  should  still  have  been  required  to 
complete  the  work  of  re-conquest.  The  causes  lay  in  the 
hereditary  faults  of  the  Spaniards ;  discord,  jealousy, 
avarice,  struggles  of  the  kings  with  their  insubordinate 
vassals,  prevented  them  from  striking  decisive  blows  such 
as  had  formerly  been  dealt.  Time  after  time  the  internal 
dissensions  of  Castile  and  Aragon,  or  war  between  the  two, 
operated  to  the  advantage  of  the  Moslem  foe.  A  union  of 
the  Christian  forces  in  one  kingdom  embracing  all  Spain  had 
been  on  the  point  of  taking  place  in  the  twelfth  century, 
and  Alfonso  VII.  had  had  himself  crowned  King  of  Spain. 


252  UPON  THE  POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

But  a  Spanish  Kingdom  based  upon  empty  pretensions  and 
without  the  means  of  enforcing  them  was  soon  effaced. 

The  Spanish  chronicle  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  is  a  sadly  confused  and  dispiriting  narrative.  It 
is  significant,  to  begin  with,  that  one  chronicler  enumerates 
179  revolutions  in  the  Christian  and  61  in  the  Moslem  states 
during  that  period — revolutions  which  almost  always  had 
their  cause  in  the  disorderly  conduct  of  a  restless  and 
haughty  aristocracy,  the  ricos  hombres.  Now  and  then  an- 
archical conditions  are  suspended  by  a  reign  of  terror  like 
that  of  Pedro  the  Cruel  and  of  many  others  in  his  time  and 
afterwards.  These  monarchical  changes,  class  struggles, 
and  revolts  of  the  grandees  against  the  crown,  which  too 
often  rested  on  the  heads  of  feeble  princes  or  of  women  and 
children,  gave  a  respite  to  the  Saracens  in  Granada  of  which 
they  knew  how  to  take  advantage.  It  is  an  infamous  feature 
in  the  history  of  these  uneasy  times  that  the  belligerent 
spirit  of  the  nobles  and  citizens  was  more  often  exercised  in 
quarrelling  amongst  themselves  than  in  fighting  against  the 
common  foe. 

When  at  last,  after  long  anarchy,  the  union  of  Spain 
was  accomplished  by  the  marriage  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  and  the  taking  of  Granada  put  an  end  to  the 
Moorish  power  in  the  Peninsula,  Spain,  by  a  sudden  and 
marvellous  impulse,  rose  to  be  the  most  flourishing  and 
powerful  monarchy  of  Europe.  The  world  had  never  yet  seen 
a  ruling  pair  so  excellently  suited  to  each  other  and  work- 
ing so  harmoniously,  though  in  distinct  provinces;  and 
both  became,  properly  speaking,  the  creators  of  the  modern 
Spanish  Monarchy  ;  they  laid  the  foundation  upon  which 
Charles  V.  and  Philip  II.  built. 

Isabella  was  indubitably  the  greatest  monarch,  and  the 
noblest  and  most  pure-minded  character,  who  ever  reigned 
in  Spain ;  when  she  erred — and  she  erred  deeply  and  fatally 
—it  was  because  her  conscience  was  enthralled  by  human 
authority,  sometimes  that  of  her  husband  and  sometimes 
tha.t  of  her  confessor.  In  history  she  ranks  with 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  253 

Theresa,  who,  like  her,  surpassed  all  the  other  princes  of 
the  house  from  which  she  sprang.  It  is  part  of  the  contrast 
between  France  and  Spain  that  in  the  former  country,  in 
spite  of  the  Salic  Law,  the  government  and  political  influence 
of  women — not  of  the  wives,  but  of  the  widows,  as  regents, 
and  of  the  mistresses  of  kings — has  been  as  injurious  as 
it  has  been  frequent ;  whilst  on  the  contrary,  in  Spain, 
besides  the  great  Isabella,  who  reigned  independently,  the 
consorts  of  the  kings,  who,  generally  through  the  weakness 
and  incapacity  of  their  husbands,  were  forced  to  act  as 
their  substitutes,  have  often  governed  not  ingloriously. 

It  has  been  continually  asserted  that  Charles  V.  of 
Habsburg  and  his  son  Philip  strove  to  establish  a  universal 
monarchy.  The  expression,  however,  needs  definition  and 
limitation.  For  if  thereby  we  imagine  an  aim  or  policy 
analogous  to  that  which  the  Corsican  emperor  upon  the 
French  throne  deliberately  sought  to  realise,  the  two  Habs- 
burg princes  followed  quite  other  paths  and  pursued  other 
ends:  their  aims  were  above  all  religious.  It  must  be 
allowed  that  they  often  made  use  of  religion  as  an  instru- 
ment of  power — the  favour  they  showed  to  the  Inquisi- 
tion and  the  direction  they  gave  to  it  testify  to  this — and 
that  they  also  occasionally  made  it  serve  as  a  pretext 
and  excuse  for  the  violation  of  sworn  rights  and  for  a 
breach  of  the  constitution.  Still  the  ultimate  and  highest 
aim  which  they  set  before  them  was  in  itself  religious  ;  the 
consciousness  that  it  was  such  filled  them  with  confidence 
and  trust  in  God,  and  reassured  them  in  the  choice  of  im- 
moral means.  For  with  the  thought  that  they  were  God's 
chosen  instruments  was  naturally  combined  the  assurance 
that  they  participated  in  the  prerogatives  of  the  Deity,  and 
that  for  them  a  strictly  binding  law  did  not  exist. 

Charles  V.,  though  more  occupied  in  defending  and 
keeping  together  the  states  and  countries  unnaturally 
united  under  his  sovereignty  than  in* extending  his  power 
still  further,  yet  always  cherished  the  wish  and  hope  of 
proceeding  to  the  East  at  the  head  of  a  crusading  army, 


254  UPON  THE  POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

to  overthrow  the  Turkish  supremacy  and  regain  Constanti- 
nople. That  this  was  never  fulfilled,  that  not  even  a  begin- 
ning of  it  was  ever  made,  was  the  fault  of  his  own  blindness. 

Ferdinand,  Charles,  Philip,  raised  Spain  by  regular 
steps  to  the  level  of  a  great  power  in  the  world.  Castile 
was  the  centre  from  which  Spain,  Italy  with  the  islands,  and 
the  Netherlands  were  to  be  ruled,  and  the  fate  of  Germany 
was  to  be  decided.  To  these  a  new  world  had  been  added, 
but,  through  the  fault  of  both  sovereign  and  people,  so 
grievous  a  curse  lay  on  the  conquest  of  America  from 
the  very  outset,  that  the  gain  in  power  and  gold  was  out- 
weighed ten  times  over  by  the  mischief  which  ifc  brought  with 
it.  Charles  himself,  after  a  few  years'  sojourn  in  Spain,  had 
been  transformed  from  a  Netherlander  into  a  Castilian, 
and  just  as  the  Castilians  had  influenced  him,  he  in  turn 
influenced  them.  He  shared  with  them  the  opinion  that 
Spain,  under  the  guidance  of  Castile,  was  the  chosen  in- 
strument for  the  defence  of  the  Catholic  religion  in  all 
lands,  for  the  extension  of  the  dominion  of  the  church,  and 
the  uprooting  of  all  opposed  to  her  doctrines  and  societies. 
The  whole  of  the  proceedings  at  the  coronation  in  Bologna 
testified  to  the  fact  that  a  Spanish,  not  a  German  king, 
was  being  crowned;  and  Charles's  opinion  was  that  the 
empire  should  be  transmitted,  not  to  Ferdinand  and  his 
son,  but  to  his  own  son,  Philip,  a  thorough  Spaniard, 
and  that  Spain,  instead  of  Germany,  should  henceforth 
become  the  support  of  the  empire.  King  Ferdinand  had 
more  than  once  agreed  to  this,  but  he  broke  his  word  ; 
Philip  meanwhile  held  fast  to  his  claims,  and  long  occu- 
pied himself  with  plans  for  their  realisation. 

But  he  was  not  successful  in  these,  nor  indeed,  in  the 
long  run,  in  any  of  the  high-flown  plans  and  projects  which 
he  formed;  except  in  the  subjugation  of  Portugal,  which, 
after  all,  was  only  of  short  duration.  Nevertheless  Philip 
was  by  far  the  most  powerful  ruler  of  his  time. 

Philip  was  not  a  hypocrite,  as  has  been  asserted,3  but 
8  E.g.  by  Motley  in  his  work  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Bepubtic. 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  £55 

on  the  contrary  thoroughly  upright,  and,  in  his  way,  even 
conscientious ;  that  is  to  say  he  acted  continually  in  defer- 
ence to  his  conscience,  which  had  been  formed  by  the 
clergy,  nor  would  he  ever  lightly  undertake  any  important 
matter  without  the  approval  of  his  spiritual  advisers. 
Far  inferior  to  his  father  in  intellect  and  practical  power, 
he  nevertheless  carried  out  Charles's  system,  and  in  the 
fifty  years  of  his  reign  gave  to  the  Spanish  people  and 
nation  that  impress  which  later  occurrences  and  catastro- 
phes, however  much  they  might  appear  to  alter  actual 
circumstances,  were  never  able  to  efface.  He  was,  and 
is  in  the  most  emphatic  sense,  the  *  Catholic  '  king,  the 
shield  and  sword  of  the  church,  the  leader  and  champion 
in  the  universal  war  which  his  father  first  began  to'  wage 
against  the  Eeformation  in  Germany,  and  which  Philip 
carried  on  upon  a  wider  scale  in  all  directions.  Intimate 
union  with  the  papacy,  and  the  fusion  of  his  dynastic 
and  Spanish  international  aims  with  those  of  the  Eoman 
Church,  were  his  leading  principles,  and  not  even  the 
ferocious  hatred  of  Paul  IV.  could  turn  him  away  from 
them.  He  was  well  aware  that  under  the  circumstances 
of  the  time  the  Curia  and  the  cardinals  were  devoted  to 
Spanish  interests,  that  his  will  would  be  law  with  them, 
and  that  the  election  of  the  succeeding  pope  would  be 
guided  by  his  suggestions.  The  bond  which  chained  him 
to  the  papacy  was  four  or  even  five  fold.  America  he 
possessed  through  a  papal  deed  of  gift,  and  what  one  pope 
had  given,  another  could  take  away.  Navarre  was  his  by 
the  same  title ;  Julius  II.  had  bestowed  it  upon  his  grand- 
father, and  thereby  perpetuated  the  enmity  between  the 
houses  of  Habsburg  and  Bourbon.  He  depended  for  a 
considerable  portion  of  his  military  expenses  upon  the 
religious  taxes,  which  he  could  only  raise  from  either  clergy 
or  laity  with  the  concurrence  of  the  pope ;  the  cruzada, 
a  considerable  tax  levied  upon  every  Spaniard,  had  on 
each  occasion  to  be  solicited  from  the  popes.  He  could 
neither  hope  to  attain  to  the  imperial  dignity  without  the. 


UfOX  THE  POLITICAL  AM)  DTTELLECTTAL 


of  the  papacy,  nor  could  his  designs  upon  Eng- 
land succeed  without  the  support  of  Rome.  Finally,  aa 
master  of  the  Two  Sicflies  and  the  Milanese,  he  could,  if 
only  the  pope  stood  by  him,  he  dominant  over  the  whole  of 
Italy,  making  that  country  subservient  to  his  ends,  so  that 
even  the  haughty  Venetians  must  obey  him.  He.  the  king, 
as  well  as  the  Spanish  Church,  were  at  times  even  more 
papal  than  the  papacy,  at  least  as  it  was  under  Sixtus  Y. ; 
and  if  a  perfect  sample  of  a  Roman  Catholic  Church  was  to 
be  found  in  those  days,  it  had  to  be  looked  for  in  Spain 
ratter  than  in  Italy.  As  King  of  the  Two  Sicflies  he  was 
the  vassal  of  the  pope,  pledged  to  pay  him  tribute.  When, 
in  violation  of  his  oath,  he  trampled  upon  the  popular 
liberties  and  class  privileges  in  the  Netherlands  or  in 
Aragon,  it  was  not  until  he  had  obtained  the  papal  release 
from  that  oath.  Although  he  had  far  too  much  the  upper 
hand  with  the  Spanish  clergy  for  any  serious  conflict  to 

yet  he  shared  both  the  power  and  the  profit  of  the 
with  the  Curia;  the  Spanish  priest  could  with- 
out  scruple  combine  his  submission  to  the  Inner  with  obedi- 

to  the  pope;  the  nuncio  himself  could  exercise  a 
jurisdiction  under  the  eye  of  the  king ;  the  cardi- 

and  the  nephews  of  the  pope  were  in  Philip's  pay ; 
the  theologians — at  that  time  no  country  had  so  many  or 
theologians  as  Spain — worked  for  him,  and 


wrote  with  an  eye  to  the  interests  of  Spain  and  the  king  : 
the  bishops  were  foremost  in  setting  an  example  of  submis- 
sion to  him. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  there  were  at  that  time  sufficient 
grounds  for  the  fear  generally  expressed  that  Spain  was  on 
the  way  to  become  the  political  and  intellectual  centre  of 
Europe.  In  most  complete  contrast  to  the  early  Monar- 
chy of  Castile  and  Aragon,  which  often  had  to  succumb  in 
the  unequal  struggle  with  haughty  and  undisciplined  nobles 
and  with  sturdy  townsmen  jealous  of  their  Jmeros  (munici- 
pal rights),  the  son  of  Charles  had  developed  his  govern- 
ment mto  an  absolute  despotism.  Bishops  proclaimed  that 


X  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  257 

a  King  of  Spain,  instead  of  following  the  advice  of  others, 
would  do  better  to  follow  the  voice  of  God  speaking  within 
him.4  The  President  of  the  Council  of  Castile,  Don  Manuel 
Arias,  actually  exhorted  the  young  King  Philip  V.  in  these 
terms :  *  Forget  not  that  God  has  placed  you  at  the  head 
not  merely  of  a  monarchy,  but  of  a  despotic  state ;  yes, 
of  a  state  which  is  more  despotic  than  any  other  in 
Christendom.' 

But  whilst  Spain,  partly  of  her  own  accord,  partly  com- 
pelled by  her  king,  engaged  in  this  tremendous  struggle  to 
which  Philip's  physical  and  mental  powers  were  quite 
unequal,  a  period  of  decay  had  set  in  even  before  the  king's 
death,  which  filled  those  who  looked  below  the  surface 
with  gloomy  forebodings.  The  expulsion  of  the  Jews  and 
Moriscos  had  been  carried  out  with  the  utmost  severity  and 
cruelty,  to  the  lasting  injury  of  the  country,  which  in  the 
first  place  suffered  the  loss  of  its  formerly  flourishing  trade, 
and  then  saw  large  tracts  of  cultivation  disappear  and  whole 
provinces  left  desolate.  Numerous  districts  became  despo- 
blados — desert.  With  agriculture  trade  also  sank.  Things 
soon  went  so  far  that  hundreds  of  thousands  made  roadside 
begging  their  occupation,  and  only  one  class,  the  clergy, 
continued  to  flourish,  and,  to  the  detriment  of  all  others,  to 
increase  in  numbers  and  wealth,  whilst  the  entire  popula- 
tion in  a  short  time  was  reduced  from  ten  to  eight  millions 
and  still  continued  to  decrease.  The  blood  of  Spain  was 
all  the  while  being  wasted  in  hopeless  undertakings  which 
did  not  admit  of  success ;  the  Netherlands,  England,  and 
France  were  at  all  costs  to  be  subdued,  and  in  the  effort, 
the  fleet,  the  flower  of  the  army,  and  the  national  welfare 
were  sacrificed.  We  gaze  in  the  seventeenth  century  upon  a 
downfall  unexampled  in  any  civilised  nation  since  the  close 
of  the  middle  ages.  Philip  III. — these  Habsburg  princes 
followed  one  another  with  continually  decreasing  powers 

4  Thus  Miedes,  Bishop  of  Albarrazin,  De  vita  et  rebus  gestis  Jacobi  regis, 
written  under  Philip  II. 

S 


258  UPON  THE   POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

both  of  mind  and  body — desired  to  carry  out  his  father's 
policy,  yet  was  forced  to  concede  that  which  would  have 
broken  his  father's  heart. 

The  conclusion  of  the  twelve  years'  truce  with  the  Nether- 
landers,  whom  forty  years  of  warfare  had  failed  to  subdue, 
was  momentous  alike  for  Spain  and  Europe :  it  proclaimed 
that  the  marrow  of  Spain  was  dried  up,  and  that  henceforth 
that  country  could  no  longer  play  the  part  of  an  aggressive 
power.  For  a  hundred  years  Spain  had  struggled  to  force 
other  nations  to  bow  once  more  under  the  dominion  of  the 
Eoman  see.  Only  in  Germany,  thanks  to  a  league  with  the 
Austrian  branch  of  the  house  of  Habsburg,  had  she  partially 
succeeded  in  this ;  everywhere  else  the  endeavour  had  failed, 
and  now  after  enormous  sacrifices  of  blood  and  treasure  the 
bitter  discovery  had  to  be  made  that  Home,  hitherto  entirely 
submissive  to  Spanish  policy,  was  beginning  more  and  more 
to  turn  and  pay  homage  to  the  rising  sun  of  France. 

Vainly  in  the  year  1624  did  the  minister  and  favourite 
of  Philip  IV.,  Olivarez,  set  before  the  nuncio  Sachetti  that 
the  king  was  now  the  only  monarch  in  the  world  who,  solely 
on  account  of  religion,  carried  on  war  permanently  with 
Turks  and  heretics ;  it  would  be  more  for  the  political  ad- 
vantage of  Spain  to  make  peace  with  her  enemies ;  but  the 
king  would  strip  himself  of  his  shirt  rather  than  give  in  where 
religion  was  concerned.  Urban  VIII. ,  in  spite  of  protests 
raised  even  in  the  Consistory,  attached  himself  to  the  French 
side,  and  thereby  prepared  for  the  house  of  Habsburg  and 
for  Spain  the  humiliation  of  the  Peace  of  Westphalia.5 

With   the  elevation  of  the  house  of  Bourbon  to  the 

5  '  Olivarez  mi  rispose  die  lui  solo  [the  king]  in  questo  mondo  manteneva 
guerra  contro  Turchi  e  contro  eretici  per  il  solo  puntiglio  della  religione 
catolica ;  che  per  politico  interesse  gli  sarebbe  stato  molto  commodo  di 
quietarsi  con  gli  suoi  nemici,  il  che  saria  sempre  stato  in  sua  mano,  mentre 
avesse  voluto  rimettere  il  rigore  della  difesa  e  protezione  di  catolica  religione. 
Ma  che  non  avendo  il  suo  re  altra  politica  che  d'  esser  buon  catolico,  con 
determinazione  e  per  mantener  tale  li  suoi  stati,  di  lasciar  da  parte,  come 
aveva  fatto,  tutti  gli  altri  interessi,  avria  piu  tosto  voluto  restar  in  camiscia 
e  perdere  il  lutto,  che  rimettere  una  parte  in  questa  materia  di  religione.' 
From  the  Codex  of  the  British  Museum,  No.  8,693 ;  Sachetti,  Nunziatura 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  259 

Spanish  throne  a  new  period  began  in  the  life  of  the  Spa- 
nish people  and  state,  a  period  in  many  respects  quite  un- 
like that  of  the  Habsburgs.  The  political  and  intellectual 
life  of  Spain  became  more  and  more  saturated  by  French 
influences,  and  I  might  characterise  the  whole  period  of 
nearly  two  centuries  after  the  death  of  Charles  II.  as  one 
of  struggle  between  the  old  Spanish  and  the  French  natures  ; 
it  is  one  of  alternate  appropriation  and  rejection ;  a  national 
ferment,  set  up  by  the  intermixture  of  antagonistic  elements, 
traceable,  like  a  red  streak,  throughout  the  modern  history 
of  Spain,  and  discernible  as  the  active  cause,  now  imme- 
diate, now  distant  and  indirect,  of  all  important  events. 
Dynasty,  court,  and  diplomacy  were  the  media  through 
which  it  worked ;  the  statesmen  under  Philip  V.  belonged 
to  the  French  school  of  Eichelieu,  Mazarin,  and  Colbert. 
The  unlimited  monarchy  of  Pdchelieu  and  Louis  XIV.,  the 
*  1'etat  c'est  moi,'  according  to  the  French  pattern,  was  to 
take  the  place  of  the  Habsburg  absolutism.  Whereas  the 
kings  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  had  con- 
tented themselves  with  creating  in  the  capital  a  mass  of 
ministers  and  officials  whose  duties  were  not  distinctly  de- 
fined, and  who  contravened  and  paralysed  each  other's 
action,  so  that  the  more  distant  provinces  were  to  a  great 
extent  left  to  themselves,  efforts  were  now  directed  towards 
the  introduction  of  an  administrative  machinery  animated 
and  guided  by  one  supreme  will.  Spain  at  all  events  re- 
ceived by  degrees  the  outward  polish  and  semblance  of  a 
modern  state. 

The  revolution  in  the  province  of  intellect  and  literature 
was  the  most  conclusive  token  that  the  Spain  of  former 
times  was  buried  with  the  past.  To  most  departments  of 
human  thought  and  knowledge,  and  especially  those 

di  Spagna.  With  this  it  may  be  noted  that  Philip  IV.  surpassed  even 
his  grandfather  in  the  excesses  of  his  life ;  he  had  thirty-two  illegitimate 
children.  The  irritation  at  that  time  in  Spain  against  Pope  Urban  VIII. 
was  so  great  that  the  same  nuncio  reported  on  Jan.  16,  1625  :  •  It  is  publicly 
said  in  Madrid  that  the  pope  ought,  by  poison  or  some  other  means,  to  be 
put  out  of  the  world.' 

s-2 


260  UPON  THE  POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

which  are  now  practically  indispensable,  Spain,  owing  to 
the  general  suppression  of  all  intellectual  activity,  had 
contributed  nothing  ;  Spanish  literature,  overflowing  with 
romances,  plays,  collections  of  homilies,  lives  of  saints,  and 
scholastic  ethics  and  dogmatics,  had  nothing  to  show  in  the 
way  of  antiquarian  research,  or  mathematics,  or  natural 
and  political  science.  To  fill  this  void,  foreign  literature 
streamed  in ;  and  that,  although  to  a  Spaniard,  born  and 
bred  in  the  mental  atmosphere  of  old  Spain,  French  litera- 
ture, the  only  kind  which  offered  itself,  must  at  first  have 
appeared  monstrous  and  most  objectionable.  In  poetry, 
and  especially  in  that  class  of  poetry  in  which  Spain  had 
excelled,  the  drama,  death  and  sterility  had  taken  the  place 
of  the  redundant  creative  life  which  had  been  apparent  but 
a  few  years  before.  The  theatre  was  now  supplied  by  trans- 
lations from  French  poets,  who  themselves  sought  their 
inspiration  from  the  rich  storehouses  of  Spain,  and  on 
the  Spanish  stage  were  produced  servile  copies  of  French 
dramas  which  in  some  cases  were  themselves  imitations  of 
Spanish  originals. 

The  nine  and  twenty  years  of  the  reign  of  Charles  III. 
are  now  considered  to  have  been  the  happiest  period  for 
Spain  since  the  time  of  Isabella.  The  foreign  policy  of 
this  monarch  was  indeed  neither  wise  nor  fortunate.  By 
the  family  compact  he  bound  Spain  to  France.  He  went  to 
war  with  England  in  the  interests  of  France.  By  support- 
ing the  North  American  Eebellion  he  prepared  the  way  for 
the  revolt  of  Spanish  America.  But  under  the  guidance  of 
the  ministers  who  had  advised  him,  Floridablanca,  Aranda, 
Campomanes,  Jovellanos,  a  series  of  reforms  were  begun 
and  partly  carried  out,  which,  if  they  had  been  permanent, 
and  had  not  for  the  most  part  fallen  into  decay  or  disap- 
peared under  Charles's  incapable  son,  would  have  given  to 
Spain  a  government  resembling  the  rest  of  the  European 
states.  But  these  statesmen,  and  the  group  of  authors  who 
wrote  under  their  inspiration,  were  so  entirely  governed  by 
the  political  conceptions  of  France,  so  imbued  with  the 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  261 

Galilean  spirit,  that  their  own  productions  might  be  mis- 
taken for  French  translations.  An  irresistible  destiny 
seemed  to  link  Spain  closer  and  closer  to  France,  and  to 
entangle  it  more  deeply  in  this  intellectual  thraldom.  It  is 
well  known  how,  when  this  vassalage  had  through  Godoy 
become  a  grovelling  servitude,  and  Napoleon  imagined  that 
by  a  bold  stroke  he  had  got  possession  of  the  whole  of 
Spain,  the  nation  woke  from  its  lethargy,  and  by  the  help 
of  the  English  broke  the  yoke  from  off  its  neck. 

And  now  one  word  more  upon  the  intellectual  relations 
between  Germany  and  Spain.  It  may  be  generally  admitted 
that  points  of  contact  between  the  two  countries  are  becom- 
ing more  numerous,  and  relations  closer  than  was  ever  the 
case  at  any  former  period.  When  Spain  and  Germany  were 
united  in  the  person  of  Charles  V.,  they  remained  both  in- 
wardly and  outwardly  estranged.  Not  a  single  German 
was  to  be  seen  at  the  court  of  the  emperor  in  Spain,  and 
Spaniards  only  occasionally  went  to  Germany  when  com- 
pelled by  military  duty  in  time  of  war,  or  in  the  retinue  of 
their  king.  The  league  of  kinship  and  policy  between  the 
two  branches  of  the  house  of  Habsburg,  the  German  and 
the  Spanish,  only  roused  amongst  the  Germans  fear  and 
aversion.  It  brought  a  few  Spaniards  to  Vienna,  but  only 
diplomatists.  In  the  days  of  the  Habsburgs,  moreover,  a 
Spaniard  could  not  easily  quit  his  own  country  ;  if  he  did 
so,  suspicion  was  excited,  and  upon  his  return  he  fell  a 
victim  to  the  Holy  Office.  Since  the  commencement  of  the 
present  century  matters  have  altered.  Spaniards  and  Ger- 
mans have  been  comrades  in  fate  and  misfortune,  and  have 
fought  in  arms  together  against  the  common  enemy  and 
oppressor.  Since  then  also  the  attentive  and  loving  study 
of  Spanish  literature  and  history  has  led  the  Germans 
further  and  further  towards  a  favourable  judgment  of  the 
character  of  the  people,  of  its  great  qualities  and  various 
endowments,  as  well  as  of  its  moral  standard,  although  for 
the  most  part  the  lower  classes,  rather  than  the  upper,  the 
rich,  and  the  educated,  are  credited  with  these  character- 


262  UPON  THE  POLITICAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  x 

istics.  With  what  admiration  and  eloquence  does  Ernst 
Moritz  Arndt,  that  stern,  strict  censor  of  national  qualities, 
express  himself  with  regard  to  this  people  !  I  will  only 
remind  you  further  of  the  friend  of  my  youth,  Victor  Ama- 
deus  Huber,  of  William  von  Humbolt,  von  Hiigel,  Alex. 
Flegler,  and  more  recently  of  Graf  Schack,  Lauser,  Thienen- 
Adlerflycht,  Willkom,  Minutoli.  I  might  almost  assert  that 
the  Germans  are  inclined  to  look  more  readily  upon  the 
bright  side  of  the  Spanish  character  than  the  Spaniards 
themselves  ;  at  least  it  appears  to  me  that  the  harsh  judg- 
ments, half  in  commiseration,  half  in  condemnation  of  this 
people,  and  the  gloomy  prognostications  as  to  their  future 
which  we  meet  with  in  Spanish  as  well  as  in  French 
and  English  publications,  find  no  echo  in  German  writ- 
ings. And  even  where  Germans,  in  face  of  the  hopeless 
condition  of  the  higher  classes,  incline  towards  a  pessimist 
view,  the  hope  can  still  be  discerned  that  the  latent  energy 
contained  within  that  part  of  the  nation  which  has  remained 
healthy  and  sound  may  sooner  or  later  receive  an  impulse 
of  revival  and  spring  forth  in  new  birth. 

If  we  now  ask  what  is  the  attitude  of  the  Spaniards 
towards  the  Germans,  we  are  forced  to  answer,  Ic/noti  nulla 
cupido  ;  the  German  people  with  its  50,000,000  as  com- 
pared with  15,000,000  of  Spaniards,  with  its  literature,  the 
richest  in  any  language,  remained  until  a  few  years  ago  far 
less  known  to  the  Spaniards  than  France,  Italy,  and  Eng- 
land, in  fact  hardly  more  known  to  them  than  the  people 
of  Turkey  or  Persia. 

Here  then  are  materials  and  opportunities  neither  for 
hatred  nor  preference.  The  overpowering  influence  of  French 
literature  stands  in  the  way  of  German  ideas  and  intel- 
lectual productions ;  there  is  not  room  for  them ;  it  is 
only  necessary  to  compare  the  numerous  translations  from 
the  French  with  the  rare  translations  of  German  works,  to 
perceive  this.  That  a  great  bond  of  intellectual  union  exists 
between  the  Eomance  or  Latin  nations,  that  intellectually 
France  is  the  natural  leader  and  guardian  of  these  races, 


x  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  263 

that  Spain,  failing  a  literature  of  her  own  suitable  to  meet 
the  needs  of  the  day,  falls  back  upon  the  lighter  and  more 
original  literature  "of  France — this,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  at 
present  the  prevaling  opinion  amongst  the  educated  classes 
beyond  the  Pyrenees.  Castelar  declared  but  very  recently, 
without  exciting  contradiction,  that  Spain  was  morally  a 
French  province.  Nevertheless  for  some  few  years  past  the 
attention  of  at  least  a  few  eminent  men  has  been  turned 
towards  the  intellectual  life  of  Germany.  The  voice  of 
the  man  who  now  stands  at  the  head  of  the  government, 
Canovas  del  Castillo,  above  all  deserves  our  attention. 

Some  years  ago,  in  an  address  delivered  at  the  Athe- 
naeum in  Madrid,  Canovas  observed  that  even  in  the  time 
of  Charles  V.,  the  Spaniard  Avila,  although  he  described 
the  victory  of  the  Spaniards  over  the  Germans  at  Miihlberg, 
yet  declared  that  humanly  speaking  the  rest  of  Christendom 
together  would  not  be  capable  of  defending  itself  against 
the  German  power.  He  then  showed  how,  above  all  in 
political  life,  the  Germans  are  superior  to  the  Latins,  be- 
cause freedom,  a  freedom  strictly  disciplined  and  curbed, 
and  shielded  by  the  law,  is  to  be  found  only  amongst  the 
English  and  Germans,  whereas  the  Latin  races,  slaves  of 
arbitrary  abstractions,  exhaust  themselves  in  the  ceaseless 
pursuit  of  vain  ideals.  He  then  goes  on  to  say : 

1  Sheltered  by  this  fortunate  combination  of  freedom  and 
order,  German  science  has  flourished,  so  that  if  Charles  V. 
could  now  rise  up  again,  he  would  esteem  not  only  his 
warriors  of  Miihlberg  and  his  imperial  sceptre,  but  also  his 
sovereignty  over  the  greatest  thinkers  of  the  human  race, 
such  as  Francisco  Vitoria  and  Domingo  de  Solo,6  less 
highly  than  Kant  or  Fichte,  Hegel  or  Krause.  For  not 
only  are  the  Germans  admitted  to  be  the  greatest  meta- 
physicians of  modern  times,  but  even  the  latest  growth  of 
materialism  is  indebted  for  its  apostles  to  Germany.' 

6  That  two  scholastic  theologians  can  here  be  named  as  dominant  intel- 
lects whose  names  are  not  known  in  Germany  but  to  a  few  scholars,  must  be 
excused  in  Spaniards,  who  are  not  accustomed  to  our  very  different  stan- 
d  ard. 


264  UPON  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPAIN  x 

He  who  thus  spoke  is  a  Spanish  Guizot,  at  once  a 
learned  historian,  a  professor,  and  a  statesman  ;  and  he  is 
not  without  sympathisers  in  his  opinions,  although  repub- 
licans like  Castelar  and  Garrido,  relying  upon  France,  and 
receiving  their  inspirations  from  thence,  speak  of  the  Ger- 
mans with  hatred  and  contempt,  desire  their  ruin,  and 
prophesy  it  accordingly. 

We  may  at  all  events  rejoice  over  the  fact  that  the 
gates  of  Spain  are  at  length  open  to  German  science  and 
literature,  and  that  our  language  is  every  year  more  widely 
studied.  Besides  this  five  times  more  space  and  attention  in 
French  books  and  periodicals  is  now  devoted  to  German  works 
than  was  the  case  ten  years  ago.  Thus  Spain  will  through 
this  familiar  channel  be  directed  towards,  and  become  ac- 
quainted with,  the  greater  wealth  of  German  learning  and 
research,  and  we  may  therefore  express  the  hope  that,  with 
the  increasing  fellowship  of  knowledge  and  ideas,  firmer  ties 
of  mutual  understanding  and  intellectual  commerce  may  be 
formed. 


265 


XI 

THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV 

WHEN  the  two  famous  historians,  Thiers  and  Eanke,  met  in 
Vienna  in  October  1870,  the  former  asked,  '  With  whom  are 
the  Germans  now  fighting,  since  the  fall  of  the  emperor?  '- 
'  Against  Louis  XIV.,'  answered  the  German  scholar.  The 
truth  of  these  words  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  king  who  died 
167  years  ago  is  still  in  our  own  time  a  more  prominent 
figure  than  that  of  the  first  Napoleon ;  that,  both  in  church 
and  state,  we  still  benefit  and  still  suffer  from  the  after 
effects  of  his  administration  and  must  still  take  them  into 
account.  The  story,  therefore,  of  his  life  is  not  that  of  a 
prince  to  whom  we  are  strange  and  indifferent  ;  the  mark 
which  he  left  in  history,  in  the  history  of  all  Europe  and 
especially  in  that  of  Germany,  was  too  deep  and  significant 
for  that  ;  and  whilst  engaged  in  the  consideration  of  what 
he  strove  after,  and  what  he  attained  to,  and  how,  and  why 
he  willed  it,  we  are  in  reality  studying  a  chapter  of  German 
and  of  European  history. 


Probably  there  are  not  five  historical  personages  upon 
whom  the  world's  judgment  is  so  irreconcilably  divided,  so 
sharply  at  variance,  as  upon  Louis  XIV.  So  it  was  even 
in  his  own  time— as  we  are  reminded  by  the  contradic- 
tory utterances  of  Leibnitz  ;  so  it  remained  throughout  the 
eighteenth  century ;  and  now,  although  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury has  laid  open  to  us  a  mine  of  wealth  by  the  publication 
of  records  which  place  the  most  important  portions  of  his 


266  THE   POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

history  in  a  new  light,  and  furnish  the  key  to  much  besides, 
opinion  is  still  irreconcilably  divided  upon  him,  in  France 
even  more  than  elsewhere.  Whilst  some  see  in  him  the 
type  of  a  selfish  tyrant  who  prepared  the  way  for  the  Kevo- 
lution — made  it,  in  fact,  inevitable — and  who  is  responsible 
for  the  downfall  of  the  monarchy,  others  regard  him  as  the 
sovereign  who,  at  the  cost,  it  may  be,  of  temporary  distress, 
has  left  to  the  nation  an  enduring  legacy  of  fame,  splendour, 
and  power,  along  with  imperishable  treasures  of  intellectual 
activity. 

It  is  particularly  difficult  for  Germans  to  arrive  at  a 
fair,  unbiassed  judgment  concerning  this  king;  their  gloom- 
iest, most  humiliating  recollections  are  connected  with  his 
name  and  with  deeds  done  by  his  orders.  I  have  myself 
keenly  experienced  this  difficulty,  for,  when  studying  his 
history,  I  have  had  continually  to  avoid  dwelling  upon  the 
images  indelibly  impressed  upon  the  memory  by  Worms, 
Spires,  Oppenheim,  and  Mannheim.  However,  I  trust  that 
I  may  escape  the  reproach  of  partiality,  since  I  have 
endeavoured  strenuously  to  distinguish  the  part  which  the 
king,  through  his  personal  inclinations  and  aversions,  prin- 
ciples and  passions,  took  in  the  events  of  the  time,  from 
the  part  to  be  attributed  to  existing  political  conditions,  to 
opinions  characteristic  of  the  age,  and,  above  all,  to  the 
temper  of  the  people  and  the  sentiments  which  prevailed 
amongst  them. 

We  possess  one  excellent  source  of  information  in  the 
memoirs  of  his  reign  dictated  by  himself  partly  for  the  in- 
struction of  his  son  and  partly  as  an  historical  monument  ; 
they  only  cover  some  of  the  first  years,  yet  they  hold  the  key 
to  the  understanding  of  later  events  so  far  as  these  were 
determined  by  Louis.  Louis  here  appears  as  a  thinker  who 
has  learnt  to  know  his  rights  and  duties,  not  from  books — 
he  was  never  fond  of  reading — but  emphatically  from  his 
conversations  with  Mazarin,  from  passing  events,  from  the 
study  of  mankind,  and  from  reflection  upon  himself  and 
his  position.  Nobody  who  cares  to  understand  the  king's 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  267 

thoughts  and  the  motives  of  his  conduct  should  leave  these 
records  unread. 

Goethe  somewhere  says,  that  in  families  of  long  descent, 
Nature  occasionally  produces  an  individual  uniting  in  his 
person  the  characteristics  of  all  his  ancestors.  The  remark 
does  not  exactly  apply  to  Louis,  since  the  Bourbon  family 
only  came  to  the  throne  with  his  grandfather.  But,  taken 
in  a  somewhat  wider  sense,  it  may  be  said  that  from 
amongst  Louis's  ancestors  Philip  Augustus,  Philip  the 
Fair,  Louis  XL,  Francis  L,  and  Henry  IV.  appear  to  have 
been  combined  in  him,  and  to  have  imparted  to  him  a  share 
in  their  character  and  aims.  They  and  the  two  cardinals 
all  helped  to  prepare  the  way,  and  did  the  hardest  part  of 
the  work  for  him. 

The  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  afforded  the  most  brilliant  im- 
posing spectacle  of  pure  monarchy  that  the  world  had  yet 
seen.  The  consciousness  of  royalty  was  developed  in  him 
to  the  highest  degree  ;  he  possessed,  to  the  greatest  perfec- 
tion, the  art  of  playing  the  king.  The  self-control  de- 
manded by  this  art,  the  capacity  of  mingling  pleasure  with 
abstinence,  serious  business  with  courtly  amusements, 
besides  unerring  tact  in  ordering  and  organising  matters 
great  and  small,  grave  and  gay— all  this  he  possessed 
at  an  early  age.  Lofty  and  pretentious  in  his  dealings 
with  foreign  powers,  he  was  a  pattern  of  good-nature 
and  dignified  familiarity  with  his  courtiers,  officials,  and 
subjects.  He  scarcely  ever  gave  way  to  fits  of  anger. 
According  to  Saint-Simon,  he  would  have  been  every  inch 
a  king  even  if  he  had  been  born  under  the  roof  of  a  beggar. 
He  was  reckoned  the  handsomest  man  in  the  kingdom. 
Thus  his  personal  appearance  contributed  to  rouse  the 
enthusiastic  admiration  of  the  nation,  and  to  beget  a  sort 
of  religion  of  royalty,  a  worship  of  his  person,  which  re- 
acted upon  himself  with  intoxicating  effect,  and  obscured 
the  natural  clearness  of  his  judgment. 

The  Fronde  had  acted  as  a  warning  upon  both  king 
and  people.  This  frivolous  and  wanton  assault  of  the  upper 


268  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

classes  of  the  land,of  men  and  women  of  the  highest  rank, 
upon  the  foundations  of  political  order — following  upon  the 
protracted  rule  of  a  heartless  prelate,  and  of  an  avaricious 
and  detested  Italian — had  left  a  sense  of  bitterness  and 
humiliation  which  awoke  in  the  French  a  longing  for  a 
strong  unlimited  monarchy.  And  now  in  the  brilliant  and 
attractive  personality  of  Louis,  in  all  points  corresponding 
to  the  national  ideal,  the  longing  was  to  be  realised.  The 
tendencies  and  desires  of  the  nation  were  embodied  in 
royalty  ;  each  one  saw  himself  reflected  in  the  king  ;  only 
infinitely  magnified  and  embellished.  The  crown  was  sanc- 
tified by  the  holy  anointing  oil  preserved  at  Eheims,  which 
had  descended  from  heaven,  and  through  it  the  king  was 
endowed  with  supernatural  power.  He  must  be  absolute 
lord  and  master  ;  any  limitation  would  seem  a  diminution 
of  the  national  power,  of  the  greatness  and  magnificence  of 
France.  Si  rent  le  roi,  si  vent  la  loi.  The  jurists  con- 
structed the  theory  of  absolute  government  upon  the  Eoman 
law,  and  pronounced  the  monarch  to  be  unfettered  by  the 
law — his  pleasure,  in  fact,  to  be  law ;  the  clergy,  with  Bos- 
suet  at  their  head,  founded  it  upon  the  Bible  ;  the  nobles, 
upon  tradition  and  the  ancient  custom  (coutumes)  of  the 
provinces.  Public  opinion,  so  far  as  it  existed  in  the  country, 
may  well  be  said  to  have  consisted  in  admiration  for  the 
king  and  the  worship  of  royalty. 

This  idolatry  was  by  no  means  a  new  thing  in  France. 
Even  under  the  disastrous  rule  of  the  last  of  the  Valois, 
the  Venetian  ambassador  Michiele  reported  to  his  senate 
in  1572,  '  Frenchmen  neither  can  nor  will  live  out  of 
France,  since  they  know  no  other  God  but  the  king  ;  when 
he  passes  the  people  go  down  upon  their  knees  in  adoration 
as  though  he  were  God.'  '  It  is  certain,'  said  Leibnitz  later, 
'  that  no  nation  is  so  rejoiced  at  heart  when  their  king  is 
spoken  of  with  honour  as  the  French.  They  delight  to  see 
in  the  hands  of  their  king  that  absolute  power  which  others 
hate,  and  would  add  to  it  if  possible.  The  reason  of  this  is 
that  the  French  are  by  nature  courtiers,  yens  aidica,  their 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  269 

bodily  and  mental  vivacity  tend  toward  outward  show  and 
pleasing  manners,  they  are  formed  for  oratory  and  easily 
persuaded  by  it  :  such  a  people  is  monarchical.' 

In  attempting  to  form  a  general  opinion  of  the  spirit 
and  aims  of  the  government  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  to  mark  in 
particular  its  relation  to  the  political  development  of  France 
before  and  after  his  day,  we  encounter  a  fact  which  appears 
to  me  not  to  have  been  hitherto  sufficiently  observed  and 
appreciated  even  in  France.  France,  from  the  fifteenth  to 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was,  more  than  any  other 
country,  I  may  almost  say  continuously,  under  the  rule  of 
cardinals  or  men  who  aspired  to  that  dignity  ;  the  marks  of 
priestly  government  are  strongly  imprinted  upon  the  his- 
tory of  the  country,  and  to  the  experienced  observer  afford 
the  explanation  of  many  an  event  and  many  a  peculiarity 
of  the  time. 

Strictly  speaking,  and  if  oaths  of  obedience  are  to  be 
understood  in  their  literal  sense,  the  position  of  cardinal  com- 
bined with  that  of  minister  or  chancellor  would  be  simply  un- 
tenable. For  the  points  of  collision  upon  which  the  holder  of 
this  double  office  would  be  forced  to  swerve  from  his  obliga- 
tions either  to  the  Tiara  or  the  Crown  must  be  innumerable. 
But  the  close  connection  between  Eome  and  Paris,  their 
common  interests  and  enemies,  the  long  period  during  which 
French  popes  willingly  served  the  royal  policy  of  France 
and  the  Gallic  element  predominated  in  the  Curia,  the 
fact  that  a  strong  French  party  continued  to  exist  amongst 
the  cardinals,  and  that  that  high  dignity  was  compatible 
with  holding  an  accumulation  of  lucrative  benefices — all 
combined  to  induce  leading  statesmen,  if  not  shackled  by 
the  bonds  of  matrimony,  to  scheme  for  obtaining  the  red  hat, 
and  led  kings,  and  still  more  queens  who  were  entrusted 
with  the  Eegency,  to  assist  them  in  their  endeavours. 

A  cardinal,  moreover,  by  the  laws  of  the  church,  was 
as  inviolable  as  the  monarch  himself;  whoever  conspired 
or  even  was  privy  to  any  meditated  offence  against  him 
incurred  the  guilt  of  high  treason,  and  was  liable  to  the 


270  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  ,i 

severest  penalties  of  the  church.     Je  couvre  tout  de  ma  sou- 
tane rouge,  said  Richelieu. 

Louis,  however,  considered  that  France  had  had  more 
than   enough    of    cardinal   ministers.      He   made   use   of 
cardinals,  and  with  good  success,  where  they  could  serve 
him  better  than  others,  hut  he  kept  them  from  meddling 
with  the  business  of  the  state.     Nevertheless  it  may  be  said 
that   in  a   certain  sense  the  reign  of  cardinals  continued 
even  under  him,  since  he  was  guided  in  the  main  by  the 
principles  of  Eichelieu  and  Mazarin  ;  and,  though  by  im- 
parting to  his  policy  a  strictly  denominational  stamp  he 
appeared    to   differ    from    his   two   masters,  he   certainly 
believed  that  they  would  not  have  acted  differently  in  view 
of   the  great  changes  in  the  situation  of  Europe   and  of 
France.     At  any   rate  in  the  latter  years   of   his  life  he 
conformed  his  policy  in  ecclesiastical  affairs  entirely  to  that 
of  the  cardinals,  and  implicitly  followed  the  counsels  of  the 
cardinals  Eohan  and  Bissy.     After  his  death  the  traditions 
of  public  administration  on  the  same  principles  and  in  the 
interests  of  the  cardinalate  were  still  perpetuated  by  Dubois, 
Fleury,  and  Bernis,  up  to  the  time  when  royalty  itself  had 
begun  to  tremble  at  the  outburst  of  the  Revolution.     Then, 
under  Cardinal  Lomenie   de   Brienne,   they   were  totally 
wrecked  and  lost. 

In  a  country  like  France,  where  the  church,  with  her 
vast  wealth  and  landed  possessions,  her  stability  of  organi- 
sation, and  her  esprit  de  corps,  was  so  strong  and  influential 
amongst  a  people  still  preserving  an  emphatically  religious 
bias,  the  monarchy  could  only  reach  unlimited  power  by 
ruling  over  the  church  and  availing  itself  of  her  in- 
fluence. Pope  Leo  X.  had  laid  the  foundation  of  this  by 
the  concordat,  which  conferred  upon  the  kings  the  entire 
patronage  of  the  higher  offices  in  the  church,  including  that 
of  the  abbeys,  so  that  the  whole  clergy  became  dependent 
in  its  hopes  and  needs  upon  the  royal  power.  One  after 
another  the  cardinal  ministers,  and  Richelieu  especially, 
grasped  the  reins  of  government  with  powerful  hands,  and 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  271 

having  combined  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  office  of 
cardinal  with  the  exercise  of  sovereign  power,  transmitted 
to  an  energetic  monarch,  educated  in  their  own  school,  a 
heritage  greatly  augmented  by  mastery  over  the  church. 

Fenelon  more  than  once  remarked  that  the  king,  far 
more  than  the  pope,  was  the  ruler  and  master  of  the  French 
Church.  This  he  lamented,  and  sought  to  persuade  the 
Koman  court  into  more  energetic  interference  ;  yet  even  he, 
when  his  own  theological  views  were  called  in  question, 
rested  his  hopes  of  carrying  them  into  effect  entirely  upon 
the  authority  of  the  king  over  the  church,  and  he  de- 
manded, as  his  correspondence  shows,  that  the  king  should 
suppress,  by  wholesale  deposition  and  banishment,  the 
Augustinian  and  Thomist  teaching  which  was  hateful  to 
him.  Louis,  being  himself  thoroughly  ignorant  on  religious 
subjects,  in  his  government  of  the  church  naturally  followed 
the  suggestions  and  counsels  of  the  persons  on  whom,  in  this 
department,  he  bestowed  his  confidence.  These,  besides  De 
Harlay,  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  were  the  king's  confessors, 
more  particularly  Annat,  La  Chaise,  and  Tellier.  Each 
of  the  numerous  priests  and  theologians  who  became  the 
object  of  the  royal  displeasure,  and  were  subjected  to  im- 
prisonment or  banishment,  knew  pretty  accurately,  as  a 
rule,  to  which  of  the  directors  of  the  king's  conscience  his 
disgrace  was  to  be  ascribed. 

Unlimited  sovereignty  is  a  form  of  government  of  late 
development  amongst  the  German  states  of  Eomanised 
Europe.  In  ecclesiastical  states  such  as  the  States  of  the 
Church,  and  the  German  spiritual  principalities,  it  was  nur- 
tured by  the  union  of  the  spiritual  with  the  secular  power  ; 
the  popes  of  the  sixteenth  century  vigorously  exercised  it 
in  their  provinces.  Wherever  the  movement  of  the  Refor- 
mation commenced  from  above,  the  royal  power  was  cer- 
tainly strengthened  and  confirmed  ;  but  under  the  form 
given  to  it  by  Calvin,  the  impulse  towards  self-government 
and  republican  institutions  was  awakened  or  was  gaining 


272  THE  POLICY  OP  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

strength.  Just  at  that  period,  however,  a  wave  of  abso- 
lutism passed  over  Europe.  The  great  counter-reformation, 
which,  in  Austria,  and  in  the  spiritual  principalities  of 
Germany,  had  succeeded  in  suppressing  Protestantism,  and 
in  many  districts  in  entirely  eradicating  it,  even  where  its 
adherents  had  been  in  the  majority,  had  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  the  destruction  of  class  privileges  and  of  municipal 
liberties.  This  increased  the  necessity,  which  had  always 
been  strongly  felt,  of  finding  shelter  from  the  oppression  of 
the  nobles  under  the  protection  of  the  crown.  It  was  at 
this  very  time,  namely  in  1660,  that  changes  in  the  political 
constitution  of  Denmark  were  accomplished,  by  which  the 
king,  with  the  help  of  the  clergy  and  burgesses,  broke  the 
power  of  the  nobles  and  established  an  hereditary  and  at  the 
same  time  unlimited  monarchy. 

A  century  and  a  half  before  this  time,  under  Louis  XI.  and 
Francis  I.,  the  royal  power  in  France  had  become  practically 
unlimited.  During  the  civil  wars  ,between  1562  and  1594, 
all  self-governing  institutions,  especially  those  in  the  towns, 
had  been  undermined  or  destroyed,  and  in  the  uproar  of  the 
Fronde  the  work  of  destruction  was  carried  still  further. 
Besides,  the  municipal  bodies  in  so  large  a  kingdom  were 
far  too  feeble  to  resist  the  central  power,  having  no  district 
or  provincial  organisation  for  their  own  defence.  In  some 
of  the  southern  and  western  provinces,  and  in  Burgundy— 
the  pays  cVetats — assemblies  of  the  estates  possessing  the 
right  of  taxation  existed ;  but  the  clergy  and  nobles,  who 
formed  the  majority  in  them,  made  it  easy  for  the  govern- 
ment to  reduce  the  right  to  a  mere  formality.  Meanwhile, 
in  the  time  of  Philippe  the  Fair,  and  still  more  effectually 
in  that  of  Francis  I.,  the  principles  of  Koman  law  had, 
thanks  to  the  jurists,  penetrated  into  the  veins  of  the  body 
politic.  According  to  those  principles,  the  ruler  is  the  sole 
arbitrator  of  the  public  welfare ;  he  is  above  the  law ;  his 
will  is  law,  and  opposition  or  criticism  become  high  treason. 
Upon  this  foundation,  and  in  accordance  with  these  ideas, 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  273 

Eichelieu  raised  the  stronghold  of  absolute  monarchy, 
having  previously  crushed  the  despotism  of  the  feudal  lords. 
Mazarin's  brilliant  victory  over  the  Fronde  proved  not  only 
the  weakness  of  his  assailants,  but  also  that  the  power  of 
the  monarchy  had  become  invincible.  When  Louis  XIV. 
undertook  the  government  in  person,  he  found  nothing  re- 
maining in  his  way  but  the  parliaments,  and  it  cost  but  little 
trouble  to  deprive  them  of  their  political  power.  During 
his  long  reign  no  important  attempt  was  made  to  assert  the 
rights  of  the  estates,  of  feudalism,  or  of  the  provinces, 
against  the  will  of  the  crown.  Even  the  clergy,  who  alone 
had  preserved  some  slight  measure  of  corporate  indepen- 
dence, confined  themselves,  at  least  openly,  to  requests  and 
petitions,  it  being,  however,  understood  that  the  payment 
of  their  subsidies  depended  on  these  being  granted.  The 
king  himself  never  doubted  that  the  form  of  government, 
which  he  imagined  to  be  founded  upon  divine  right,  must 
be  in  accordance  with  the  mind  and  will  of  his  people  ;  the 
summoning  of  the  States  General  (etats  generaux),  which 
had  met  for  the  last  time  in  the  year  1614,  never  even 
came  into  question. 

The  disorders  and  unworthy  intrigues  of  the  Fronde 
had,  from  the  indignities  which  they  cast  upon  the  crown, 
made  a  lasting  impression  upon  Louis,  although  the  flame 
which  they  kindled  was  speedily  extinguished.  He  never 
forgot  that  as  a  boy,  though  already  a  king,  he  had  been 
forced  to  fly  in  almost  complete  destitution  from  Paris. 
He  resolved  to  rescue  the  monarchy  from  its  condition  of 
abasement  or  eclipse,  and  to  raise  it  to  the  dignity  and 
authority  befitting  it.  He  had  determined,  he  said,  to  show 
the  world  for  once  a  real  king.  In  his  memoirs  he  takes 
pleasure  in  describing  the  delights  of  governing.  De- 
spatches, calculations,  tables  of  statistics — nothing  of  the 
kind  was  too  dry  for  him.  He  worked  regularly  twice  a  day 
with  his  ministers  in  turn ;  he  never  did  allow,  nor  could  he 
have  allowed,  a  chancellor  or  prime  minister  to  superintend 
the  whole.  That,  he  considered,  was  his  own  business. 


274  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

He  seriously  believed  in  a  special  illumination,  a  divine 
instinct  in  kings,  leading  them,  if  left  to  themselves,  to 
decide  aright  in  all  important  questions.  He  mentions  the 
discerning  of  spirits,  the  bestowal  of  offices  and  distribution 
of  favours,  as  things  in  which  he,  as  God's  vicegerent  upon 
earth,  was  guided  by  inspiration  from  above.  It  is  not  the 
king  who  receives  good  advice,  said  Louis,  but  it  is  he  whose 
wisdom  trains  good  ministers,  so  that  when  he  receives  good 
counsel  from  them,  he  himself  is  properly  the  source  of  it. 
He  acknowledges  that  he  made  mistakes,  and  that  they  gave 
him  infinite  trouble  and  vexation,  but  this  had  only  hap- 
pened when,  in  careless  haste,  he  had  followed  the  opinion 
of  others. 

Even  his  writing  lessons  when  a  boy  had  been  made  a 
vehicle  for  instilling  into  his  mind  that,  as  king,  he  might 
do  whatever  he  pleased.  The  highest  dignitaries  of  the 
church,  such  as  Talon  and  Bossuet,  declared  that  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  monarch  was  a  ray  of  the  divine  wisdom ;  that 
he  governed  under  divine  inspiration ;  by  the  special  gift  of 
God  the  king  could  discover  even  the  most  secret  matters. 
'  Truly,  kings  are  gods,'  said  the  Bishop  of  Meaux;  '  they 
carry  upon  their  brows  the  stamp  of  divine  authority.'  The 
Bishop  of  Chartres,  in  1626,  set  forth,  in  a  political  docu- 
ment composed  in  the  name  of  the  clergy  and  approved  by 
the  parliament  of  Paris,  the  orthodox  doctrine  concerning 
monarchical  power.  Kings,  it  is  therein  stated,  are  gods, 
not  by  nature,  but  by  grace ;  the  life  and  death  of  their  sub- 
jects is  committed  into  their  hands  ;  even  when  they  despoil 
us  of  our  property  or  of  our  freedom,  and  work  all  manner 
of  mischief  amongst  the  people,  blind  obedience  remains  a 
sacred  duty. 

It  would,  indeed,  be  hardly  possible  for  a  deeply  religious 
monarch,  penetrated  with  the  consciousness  of  unlimited 
power,  not  to  pass  on  to  belief  in  his  own  infallibility,  that 
is,  in  divine  guidance  upon  all  important  questions  affecting 
the  public  welfare.  The  Emperor  Joseph  II.,  in  a  letter  to 
the  pope,  had  made  the  same  claim  for  himself.  How  could 


xt  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  275 

Louis  have  thought  otherwise,  who,  from  his  youth  up,  had 
been  told  that  the  thoughts  and  wills  of  kings  were  under  the 
guidance  of  God  ;  and  how  could  he  possihly  distinguish  the 
suggestions  of  his  own  political  inclinations  or  passions 
from  the  promptings  of  a  higher  inspiration  ?  In  the  last 
resort  he  could  always  appeal  to  the  sacred  mission  with 
which  he  believed  God  had  charged  him,  namely,  the  leader- 
ship of  the  Catholic  world.  The  consciousness  of  his 
ascendency,  and  afterwards  the  first  victories  of  his 
armies,  were  to  him,  as  it  were,  the  seal  of  this  mission. 

'  A  monarch,'  writes  Louis  in  his  memoranda,  '  must 
above  all  give  increasing  attention  to  the  means  of  gaining 
or  losing  public  applause.  He  is  born  to  possess  all,  and  to 
rule  over  all,  but  he  must  nevertheless  exert  himself  indefa- 
tigably  to  secure  public  opinion.' 

In  these  words  is  apparent  one  source  of  those  fatal 
delusions  and  errors  which  brought  misfortune  upon  France 
as  well  as  upon  his  own  latter  years.  He  mistook  for  public 
opinion  the  flattery  and  homage  which  intriguers  and  cour- 
tiers heaped  upon  him,  even  after  he  had  forfeited  the  good 
will  and  admiration  of  the  people.  His  own  action  had 
made  it  impossible  for  the  popular  voice  to  reach  him. 
The  press  was  completely  servile,  governed  entirely  by  the 
chancellor  ;  the  most  rigid  censorship  suppressed  any  liberty 
of  speech ;  no  complaint,  or  intimation  of  abuse  or  wrong 
could  make  itself  heard.  Imprisonment  or  exile  awaited 
the  author,  torture  and  the  cord  the  publisher,  of  any 
document  displeasing  to  the  king.  Towards  the  end  of  his 
life  the  prisons  were  filled  with  authors  who  had  written 
either  against  the  Bull  '  Unigenitus,'  issued  at  the  request 
of  Louis,  or  on  the  deeply  disordered  condition  of  the 
country.  The  governors  of  the  provinces  took  good  care 
to  report  nothing  of  the  state  of  popular  feeling ;  and  how 
little  impression  was  made  by  adverse  criticism  abroad,  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  French  government  scarcely  ever 
deigned  to  notice  it. 

In  his  treatment  of  disobedience  and  mutiny,  Louis  fol- 

T   2 


276  THE   POLICY   OF  LOUIS   XIV  xi 

lowed  the  example  of  Kichelieu  rather  than  that  of  Mazarin. 
He  made  no  show  of  imposing  heavy  penalties  upon  the 
higher  nobility ;  the  universal  fear  of  incurring  the  royal 
displeasure  was  sufficient  to  ensure  their  obedience.  He 
thought  it  necessary,  however,  by  numerous  executions, 
to  put  down  the  popular  tumults  caused  by  famine  and 
excessive  taxation.  When  in  1662  a  revolt  broke  out  in 
Gascony  against  the  introduction  of  the  Gabelle,  the  king 
ordered  the  commissioners  whom  he  sent  to  the  spot,  before 
proceeding  with  their  inquiry,  to  begin  by  executing  at  least 
1,200  persons,  and  to  select  the  strongest  amongst  the 
prisoners  for  the  king's  galleys.  The  Duke  of  Chaulnes 
received  orders  to  extinguish  with  the  utmost  severity  a 
rebellion,  into  which  the  people  of  Brittany  had  been  driven 
by  the  burden  of  the  stamp  duty,  and  the  events  which  then 
occurred  may  be  reckoned  amongst  the  most  abominable  of 
modern  times.  Since,  moreover,  the  theory  of  absolutism 
naturally  leads  to  the  doctrine  and  practice  of  the  end  jus- 
tifying the  means,  the  king's  cabinet  condoned  the  most 
high-handed  acts  of  violence  against  the  law  of  nations  ; 
for  instance,  an  Armenian  patriarch  was  carried  off  from 
Turkey,  brought  by  sea  to  France,  and  detained  for  years 
in  prison,  because  he  had  made  himself  obnoxious  to  the 
Jesuit  missionaries  in  the  East. 

Louis's  literary  education  had  certainly  been  neglected  by 
Mazarin,  and  the  oversight  was  never  repaired,  so  that  even 
the  ladies  of  the  court  were  sometimes  astonished  at  the 
king's  ignorance.  Mazarin  however  had  taught  him  the 
art  of  government  and  initiated  him  in  the  principles  and 
artifices  of  Italian  policy.  There  was,  he  pronounced,  in 
Louis,  the  making  of  four  kings  and  of  one  good  man.  The 
Duchess  Elisabeth  Charlotte  says  that  it  was  the  fashion  at 
court  to  follow  the  king's  example  of  laughing  at  learning. 
It  is  remarkable  that  Louis,  in  all  that  he  dictated  or  wrote, 
never  once  appeals  to  the  testimony  of  antiquity  nor  to  any 
authority  of  the  past.  Yet  he  had  a  Eacine  for  reader,  a 
Moliere  in  his  personal  service,  a  Pellison  for  secretary,  a 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  277 

Bossuet  for  his  frequent  adviser.  The  most  eminent  scien- 
tific and  literary  men  of  the  country  were  called  upon  to 
assist  in  the  organisation  of  three  academies ;  distinguished 
foreign  professors  were  gratified  by  pensions,  naturally  in 
the  expectation  that  they  would  do  battle  for  the  king's 
rights,  or  at  any  rate  magnify  his  deeds.  But  the  Univer- 
sity of  Paris,  the  venerable  mother  of  all  universities, 
formerly  the  ornament  and  the  pride  of  France,  the  cherished 
nursling  of  her  kings,  was  treated  by  Louis  as  a  step-child  ; 
it  is  not  even  mentioned  in  his  memoranda ;  he  never  did 
anything  for  its  benefit.  It  was,  as  was  said  by  its  rector 
in  the  year  1716,  the  oldest  and  poorest  institution  in  the 
kingdom,  and  the  long  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  was  the  darkest 
period  of  its  history.  How  things  stood  with  regard  to 
freedom  of  teaching  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  a  law  made 
by  his  father  forbidding,  under  pain  of  death,  any  deviation 
from  the  scholastic  Aristotelian  system,  remained  in  force 
under  Louis.  The  excuse  for  the  royal  displeasure  lay 
chiefly  in  this :  that,  whereas  the  importance  and  fame  of 
the  university  had  of  old  rested  upon  the  theological  faculty, 
the  king  now  suspected  the  majority  of  the  theologians  of 
Cartesian  or  Jansenist  tendencies.  The  recollection  of  a 
time  when  the  university,  a  little  state  within  the  state, 
played  an  energetic  part  in  public  affairs,  could  only  injure 
it  in  the  estimation  of  the  king  who  had  broken  up  and 
extinguished  all  corporate  life  in  France. 

Louis  had  received  his  moral  and  religious  training 
from  the  Jesuits  ;  they  won  and  retained  his  full  confidence. 
He  compelled  all  the  members  of  his  family  to  choose 
Jesuits  for  their  confessors ;  even  statesmen  and  courtiers 
were  more  easily  received  into  the  royal  favour  and  confi- 
dence if  they  surrendered  their  consciences  to  the  guidance 
of  this  order.  Eichelieu  indeed  extorted  from  the  king 
the  dismissal  of  the  royal  confessor  Caussin  with  whom  he 
had  quarrelled ;  but  Louis  himself  never  had  a  difference 
with  the  keepers  of  his  conscience,  and  he  never  changed ; 
it  was  only  when  a  member  of  the  order  died  that  his  place 


278  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

was  filled  by  another.  These  confessors  received  papal  in- 
structions from  Kome  upon  important  cases,  either  through 
the  general  of  the  order  or  the  papal  nuncio  in  Paris.  They 
were  nearly  all  of  them  in  succession  exceedingly  able, 
highly  cultivated  men,  perfectly  cognisant  of  the  limits  of 
their  influence,  and  could  be  silent,  if  not  consenting,  when 
opposition  would  have  been  in  accordance  with  the  general 
practice  of  their  order.  In  return  for  this  they  had  the  first, 
usually  the  decisive,  vote  in  the  council  of  Louis's  conscience 
(conseil  de  conscience),  manipulated  the  royal  church  patron- 
age by  the  distribution  of  bishoprics  and  prebendary  stalls, 
until  compelled  to  share  that  privilege  with  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  if  not  to  abdicate  it  in  her  favour,  and,  in  fact, 
managed  on  the  whole  to  achieve  all  that  they  set  their 
hearts  on,  filling  Louis  with  a  detestation  of  Protestantism 
and  Jansenism,  and  persuading  him  that  his  policy  was  to 
be  more  Catholic  than  his  predecessors',  and  to  use  his  power 
everywhere  for  the  benefit  of  the  church.  The  alliance 
between  the  king  and  the  order  was  useful  to  both  ;  all  over 
the  world,  even  in  the  most  distant  mission  stations,  the 
Jesuits  found  themselves  favoured  and  protected  by  French 
influence ;  whilst  they,  for  their  part,  helped  to  spread  the 
interests  of  France  everywhere  and  to  establish  the  belief, 
even  where  appearances  might  be  to  the  contrary,  that  the 
policy  of  France  was  essentially  Catholic  and  bent  on  secur- 
ing the  welfare  and  extension  of  the  church,  A  French 
Jesuit — Maimbourg —  even  went  so  far  as  to  question  the 
supremacy  of  the  pope  involved  in  the  Eomish  system, 
whereupon  Cardinal  Sfondrati  publicly  uttered  the  reproach, 
that  the  genius  of  the  Company  of  Jesus  was  now  altoge- 
ther wedded  to  the  fortunes  and  power  of  France.  James 
II.  was  warned  from  Eome  not  to  put  confidence  in  the 
Jesuits,  since  the  order  was  entirely  devoted  to  the  French 
King,  and  only  laboured  for  his  advantage. 

Magnificent  and  costly  expenditure  in  an  unceasing 
round  of  festivities  and  amusements,  and  in  architectural 
improvements,  were  considered  by  Louis  as  indispensable 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  279 

aids  to  government ;  for  admiration  is  a  relief  from  that 
sense  of  entire  subjection  to  the  will  of  the  monarch  which 
the  welfare  of  the  state  demands.  He  understood  well  that 
which  Napoleon  afterwards  formulated  into  a  principle  of 
the  art  of  government,  namely,  that  both  in  speech  and 
action  it  is  necessary  to  work  upon  the  imaginations  of 
men. 

Paris  was  too  self-reliant  for  him,  too  habitually  centred 
in  its  own  objects,  and  had  behaved  ill  at  the  time  of  the 
Fronde.  For  years  he  would  not  show  himself  in  his 
capital.  Six  times  he  vainly  attempted  to  check  its 
growth ;  instinctively,  it  may  be,  he  felt  that  Paris  was  on 
the  way  to  become  what  he  had  determined  that  he  alone 
should  be :  France.  Versailles,  formerly  a  hunting-lodge, 
he  transformed  into  a  royal  town  where  every  inhabitant 
was  more  or  less  employed  about  the  court,  and  where  all 
were  blindly  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  monarch.  There 
he  collected  all  the  nobility,  from  the  great  feudal  lords  to 
the  small  nobles  of  the  provinces.  The  great  offices  of  state 
being  withheld  from  them,  they  served  in  the  military  guard 
or  held  some  post  about  the  court.  They  were  at  once  actors 
and  spectators  in  the  majestic  display  of  royalty,  reflecting 
its  beams  upon  a  brilliant  multitude  of  worshippers;  a 
spectacle  splendid  indeed,  but  darkened  from  time  to  time 
by  the  family  misfortunes  which  successively  snatched  away 
two  generations,  leaving  the  royal  house,  in  its  desolation,  to 
centre  its  hopes  upon  a  single  boy,  Louis's  great-grandson. 

The  reproach  of  an  egotism,  sinking  everything  and 
everybody  in  himself,  has  been  levelled  frequently  against 
Louis,  both  by  contemporary  and  later  critics.  This  impres- 
sion is  produced,  however,  by  the  necessary  consequences 
of  his  position.  He  must,  as  a  boy,  have  already  felt 
that  he  was  the  sun  around  which  all  else  revolved.  If  we 
except  the  few  years  after  his  grandson  the  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy had  attained  his  majority,  there  was  not  a  day  during 
the  fifty-four  years  of  his  reign  that,  from  his  own  point  of 
view,  he  would  not  have  said  to  himself  that  his  illness  or 


280  THE  POLICY  OP  LOUIS  XIV  XI 

death  would  be  an  immense  misfortune  for  France,  and  even 
for  the  whole  of  Catholic  Christendom.  Louis's  famous 
saying,  '  Uetat,  c'est  moi,'  was  indeed  merely  the  expression 
of  a  lifelong  conviction,  that  with  him  the  monarchy  of 
France,  the  people,  and  the  welfare  of  the  state  were  morally 
identified.  Self-love,  self-admiration,  meant  with  him  love 
and  admiration  for  France,  and  vice  versa.  Just  as  the 
popes  and  their  canonists  were  wont  to  limit  the  simile  of 
the  head  and  the  members  to  its  narrowest  sense  by  making 
Eome  and  the  person  of  the  pope  the  seat  and  centre  of  all 
thought,  will,  and  action  in  the  church,  so  Louis  made  it 
the  image  of  his  relation  to  France.  This  may  be  seen  in 
his  writings.  '  Everything  through  the  king,  everything  for 
the  king,'  was  his  maxim.  The  king,  he  alone,  surveys  all 
things,  holds  in  his  hand  the  threads  of  internal  administra- 
tion as  well  as  of  external  policy  ;  he  reflects,  decides,  com- 
mands, whilst  all  besides,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest, 
are  but  instruments  for  carrying  out  his  designs.  Louis 
besides  entertained  a  preference  for  mediocrity  of  intel- 
lect, and  an  aversion  for  distinguished  men  of  talent,  with 
whom  he  would  not  consent  to  work,  and  whom  he  could 
not  endure  to  see  about  him.  In  his  presence  every  one 
was  required  to  extinguish  his  individuality,  and  to  shine 
only  by  the  reflected  light  of  the  monarch  himself.  It 
offended  him  that  the  merits  of  a  man  should  be  celebrated, 
even  after  death,  by  an  inscription,  or  recognised  by 
a  monument.  It  seemed  as  though  he  expected  to  be 
magnified  in  the  eyes  of  contemporaries  and  of  posterity  in 
proportion  as  all  figures  around  him  were  diminished. 

From  the  first  dawn  of  conscious  reflection,  he  had 
felt  himself,  as  a  king,  the  foremost  and  mightiest  upon 
earth ;  to  every  word  he  uttered,  his  tutor  Villeroi  only 
responded '  Old,  Sire.'  Morning  after  morning,  for  seventy 
years,  he  woke  with  the  thought  that  other  kings  envied 
him,  and  that  the  eyes,  not  only  of  his  own  but  of  other 
nations,  were  turned  upon  him  with  admiration.  A  consum- 
mate actor,  he  sustained  the  part  of  king  to  perfection,  as 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  281 

Napoleon  sustained  the  part  of  soldier.  If  not  the  greatest 
of  kings,  says  Bolingbroke  from  personal  observation,  he 
was  at  least  the  greatest  actor  of  majesty  that  ever  filled  a 
throne.  Louis  experienced  as  a  natural  consequence  the 
passionate  desire  that  all  actors  feel  for  public  and  vociferous 
applause,  and  for  every  sort  and  kind  of  homage.  He  is 
said  to  have  sung  verses  composed  by  himself  in  his  own 
honour.  Flattery  little  short  of  deification  was  not  repul- 
sive to  him.  When,  as  frequently  happened,  it  fell  from 
priestly  lips,  when  the  church  exalted  him  as  her  truest  son 
and  foremost  champion,  it  was  doubly  welcome  to  him.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise  than  a  gratification  both  to  him  and  to 
the  nation  to  receive  from  the  mouth  of  bishops  the  assurance 
that  the  wars  that  had  been  carried  on  were  such  only  as  had 
been  imposed  by  necessity  and  duty.  From  the  same  source, 
in  1666,  emanated  the  testimony,  that '  the  enlightened  mind 
of  our  king  has  invested  his  ministers  with  wisdom  ;  he  is 
the  most  perfect  man  of  his  century,  as  well  as,  by  right  of 
birth,  the  greatest  monarch  of  the  world.  His  soul  possesses 
such  an  abundance  of  the  rarest  qualities  that,  distributed 
amongst  the  monarchs  of  the  earth,  they  would  suffice  to 
make  of  every  one  of  them  a  perfect  sovereign.'  It  might 
seem  incredible,  had  not  the  speech  been  printed,  that  a 
representative  ecclesiastic  should  have  ventured  to  tell 
the  king  that,  thanks  to  his  majesty's  solicitude  and  good 
example,  piety  and  morality  prevailed  throughout  the  king- 
dom. The  impression  produced  upon  contemporaries  may 
be  seen  from  Bayle,  and  can  be  estimated  by  those  who  are 
acquainted  with  Flechier's '  Great  Assizes ; '  with  the  great 
poisoning  case  in  Paris  in  which  members  of  several  of  the 
most  distinguished  families  figured  as  criminals ;  or  with 
the  mutually  corroborative  narratives  and  disclosures  of 
the  Duchess  Charlotte  Elisabeth  and  the  Duke  of  Saint- 
Simon  ;  and  with  the  information  recently  brought  to  light 
by  Eavaisson  out  of  the  archives  of  the  Bastille.  The  annals 
of  criminal  law  in  France  at  that  time  disclose  a  terrible 
picture  of  lawless  wickedness,  moral  obliquity,  and  refine- 


282  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

ment  of    crime,   combined   with   judicial   barbarism   and 
cruelty. 

A  friend,  in  whom  he  could  confide,  such  as  his  grand- 
father had  possessed  in  Sully,  Louis  never  had  ;  his  letters 
are  mere  business  letters  ;  he  jealously  checked  any  inter- 
ference in  affairs  by  the  princes  of  his  house.  Unconsciously 
he  allowed  himself  to  be  swayed  by  his  ministers,  by  Col- 
bert, and  still  more,  far  too  much  so,  indeed,  by  the  evil 
genius  of  his  life,  Louvois,  and  by  his  confessors  Annat,  La 
Chaise,  and  Tellier,  but  above  all  by  that  remarkable 
woman,  the  widow  of  the  poet  Scarron,  who  made  herself 
completely  mistress  of  his  heart  and  mind.  This  woman, 
as  great  in  her  way  as  the  king  himself,  superior  to  him  in 
intellect,  marvellously  free  from  most  of  the  weaknesses 
and  faults  of  her  sex,  was  for  thirty  years  more  completely 
queen  of  France  than  the  Spanish  princess  who  preceded 
her  ;  her  influence  upon  the  destinies  of  the  nation  was 
more  marked  than  that  of  any  other  woman  in  French 
history. 

In  a  remarkable  letter  addressed  to  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon  in  the  year  1690,  probably  in  answer  to  some  previous 
communication  or  inquiry,  Fenelon  says  that  since  the 
king  now  desires  to  be  assisted  and  governed  (assiege  et 
youverne),  she  ought  earnestly  to  devote  herself  to  this 
work  in  the  interests  of  the  king  and  the  people,  and  to 
strive  to  bring  the  best  men  to  his  notice  and  into  his 
confidence.  From  this  it  may  be  conjectured  that  Louis 
himself,  having  a  high  opinion  of  her  judgment  and  pene- 
tration, had  expressed  the  wish  to  be  guided  and  counselled 
by  her  ;  and  Madame  de  Maintenon  exercised  marvellous 
tact  and  discretion  in  the  use  which  she  made  of  her 
influence.  She  submitted  herself  however,  with  unquestion- 
ing obedience  and  complete  surrender  of  her  own  judgment, 
to  priestly  guidance.  Unfortunately,  it  was  not  to  the 
peace-loving  Fenelon,  the  enemy  of  unjust  and  aggressive 
warfare  and  the  ardent  sympathiser  with  the  griefs  of  the 
impoverished  people,  that  she  entrusted  her  conscience,  but 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  283 

to  priests  like  Gobelin  and  Godet  des  Marais,  for  the  latter 
of  whom  she  obtained  the  bishopric  of  Chartres,  and  both  of 
whom  were  imbued  with  the  idea  prevalent  amongst  the 
clergy,  that  the  king  was  called  by  God  to  minister  to  the 
extension  of  the  church,  to  obtain  by  the  sword  the  victory 
over  schismatics,  and  to  convert  heretics  by  all  the  means 
of  coercion  which  lie  within  the  hand  of  an  absolute  monarch. 
Thus  the  predominance  of  those  spiritual  and  secular  in- 
fluences was  secured  which  encouraged  the  continuance  of 
war ;  and  Madame  de  Maintenon  was  compelled,  much  as 
she  detested  Louvois,  to  co-operate  in  maintaining  him  in 
his  position,  since  his  genius  and  capacity  for  work  were 
indispensable  to  the  king  in  time  of  war,  and  since  he  had 
deservedly  earned  the  reputation  of  understanding  better 
than  any  one  else  how  to  win  a  victory  from  his  writing- 
desk. 

Here  it  may  well  be  asked  whether  this  Louis,  constantly 
yielding  to  the  advice  and  guidance  of  a  woman,  could  be 
the  same  monarch  who  had  written  these  words  to  his  son  : 
1  In  the  position  which  you  inherit  from  me,  you  cannot 
without  shame  allow  yourself  to  be  guided  by  the  opinion  of 
others.'  But  between  this  letter  and  that  of  Fenelon  lies 
an  interval  of  nearly  thirty  years,  a  period  abounding  in 
spent  illusions,  abortive  undertakings,  and  disappointed 
projects  ;  dreams  of  infallibility  had  been  modified  if  not 
dispelled,  and  whereas  formerly  the  vicinity  of  any  man, 
whose  judgment  and  ability  he  must  have  acknowledged  to 
surpass  his  own,  would  not  have  been  tolerated,  he  now  wil- 
lingly gave  place  to  the  moral  and  intellectual  superiority  of 
a  woman  whom  he  loved  and  who  devoted  her  life  to  him. 
Under  her  guidance  he  anticipated  temporal  blessings  and 
eternal  salvation. 

The  magic  word  cjloirc — for  which  we  have  scarcely  an 
equivalent—  filled  Louis's  thoughts  and  formed  the  motive 
of  his  actions.  He  said  himself  that  a  high  reputation  in 
the  world  was  dearer  to  him  than  life.  He  understood  his 
people  sufficiently  to  be  aware  that  to  retain  their  admira- 


284  THE   POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

tion  and  worship,  the  king  must  find  continually  at  any 
cost  fresh  gratification  for  the  national  thirst  for  feats  of 
arms  and  conquest.  As  the  leaders  of  the  national  vote  in 
France  still  tell  us,  the  strongest  passion  of  the  people, 
possessed  to  an  equal  degree  by  no  other  nation  since  the 
times  of  the  Eomans,  is  the  desire  for  conquest,  and  this 
was  keenly  felt  and  acknowledged  by  Louis.  His  feeling 
was  the  same  as  that  which  the  first  Napoleon  afterwards 
expressed  to  Metternich  :  '  I  must  have  honour  and  glory  ; 
I  cannot  appear  with  diminished  fame  in  the  midst  of  my 
people  ;  I  must  remain  great,  glorious,  admired.' 

With  ambition  were  combined  the  suggestions  of  policy. 
Even  of  old  the  maxim,  of  which  foreign  ambassadors  to 
France  had  to  take  account,  was  that,  to  preserve  peace 
internally  and  orderly  government,  the  people  from  time  to 
time  must  be  occupied  with  foreign  wars.  This,  said  Count 
Zinzendorf,  even  for  the  most  pious  kings  of  France,  must  be 
an  invariable  rule.  The  king's  belief  that  the  wishes  and 
aspirations  of  the  nation  must  be  identical  with  his  own, 
could  not  be  otherwise  than  strengthened  and  confirmed 
by  witnessing  the  general  and  self-sacrificing  submission 
with  which  he  was  obeyed.  '  Property  and  life,'  wrote 
Madame  de  Sevigne,  '  are  as  nothing  to  the  French  when 
it  is  a  question  of  pleasing  the  king.'  The  remark  which 
she  adds,  '  We  should  be  great  saints  did  we  but  serve  God 
as  earnestly,'  reminds  one  of  the  saying  of  Colbert  upon 
his  deathbed,  that  if  he  had  done  as  much  for  God  as  he 
had  done  for  one  man — the  king — he  might  feel  assured  of 
eternal  salvation. 

In  Louis's  memoirs  we  find  the  impression  produced 
upon  him  by  the  extraordinary  contempt  of  death  with 
which,  for  the  sake  of  meriting  his  praise,  officers  and  men 
accomplished  feats  of  arms  before  his  eyes.  He  felt,  he 
said,  that  to  a  nation  which  poured  out  its  blood  so  will- 
ingly for  him,  he  owed  a  return  in  the  shape  of  fame, 
greatness,  and  conquest. 

Never  had  a  monarch  possessed,  in  diplomacy,    such 


XT  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  285 

excellent  auxiliaries  as  Louis.  Everywhere  in  Europe  his 
emissaries  were  well  provided  with  money  for  bribery  and 
for  the  payment  of  spies  and  informers.  Like  the  Spanish 
King  Philip  II.,  he  had  his  paid  adherents  and  tools  in 
every  cabinet.  He  sometimes  by  such  means  succeeded  in 
winning  greater  victories  in  diplomacy  than  through  his 
generals  in  the  field.  A  pattern  of  an  ambassador  after  the 
king's  heart  was  Gremonville  in  Vienna,  of  whom  the  king 
himself  bore  witness  that  he  did  all  that  satanic  effrontery 
and  subtlety  could  accomplish.  An  ambassador  from  Louis 
had  usually  two  ends  in  view  :  one  public  and  avowed  ;  the 
other  covert,  and  carefully  concealed.  No  scruples  were 
entertained  as  to  the  employment  of  bribery  upon  the  most 
extensive  scale  and  under  various  forms. 

Money  for  this  purpose  was  never  wanting,  since  Louis 
held  all  the  means  of  government  at  his  disposal,  and  as 
his  ministers  well  understood  how  to  provide  for  his  neces- 
sities by  tightening  the  screw  of  taxation  and  by  the  sale  of 
public  offices.  French  gold  consequently  flowed  in  an  un- 
remitting stream  towards  all  the  capitals  of  Europe,  where 
it  was  employed  in  purchasing  the  good  will  of  the  ministers, 
statesmen,  and  other  influential  personages.  Kings,  the 
two  Stuarts  for  instance,  Charles  II.  and  James  II.,  were 
pensioners  of  Louis.  In  England,  Sweden,  Poland,  Italy, 
amongst  the  ecclesiastical  prince-electors  in  the  Palatinate 
arid  Saxony,  at  the  imperial  court  of  Vienna,  and  in  Madrid, 
French  gold  was  actively  employed,  and  usually  with  good 
success,  for  his  agents  were  generally  able  to  outbid  those 
of  other  princes.  With  golden  chains,  he  intimates,  much 
could  be  done  amongst  the  emperor's  ministers,  and  he 
relates  in  his  notes  that  one  of  the  ministers  in  Vienna 
allowed  himself  in  some  financial  matter  to  be  bribed  by 
100,000  thalers  to  act  contrary  to  the  emperor's  interest. 
Leopold's  two  most  able  ministers,  Auersperg  and  Lob- 
kowitz,  laboured  energetically  under  the  guidance  of  Louis's 
ambassador,  Gremonville,  for  his  objects  ;  the  former  in 
the  hope  of  obtaining  a  cardinal's  hat  through  Louis's  recom- 


280  THE   POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV 


XI 


mendation,  the  latter  out  of  personal  admiration  for  the 
king,  and  because  he  saw  in  the  French  Monarchy  an  ideal 
to  be  aimed  at  by  Austria. 

From  the  despatches  of  his  ambassadors  in  Borne  it  may 
be  seen  how  powerful  the  influence  of  French  gold,  and  of 
other  advantages  and  rewards  which  Louis  held  at  his  com- 
mand, were  amongst  the  cardinals  and  with  all  grades  of 
officials  in  the  Curia.  Conversely,  it  is  remarkable,  and  it  is 
a  matter  which  places  Louis's  personality  in  a  very  favour- 
able light,  that  statesmen,  diplomatists,  and  agents  invari- 
ably remained  true  to  him  and  inaccessible  to  foreign 
allurements.  At  a  period  when  in  political  transactions  the 
general  custom  was  to  receive  and  to  give  money,  and  when 
at  every  congress  the  ambassadors  of  the  powers  appeared 
furnished  with  the  necessary  sums,  the  incorruptibility 
which  the  French  shared  only  with  the  Dutch,  coupled  with 
the  inexhaustible  resources  of  the  French  King's  treasury, 
was  the  guarantee  for  a  long  series  of  diplomatic  victories. 

Next  to  the  services  of  so  excellent  a  diplomatic  organi- 
sation came  the  advantage  which  Louis  gained  by  the 
favour  and  confidence  with  which  the  clergy  throughout 
Europe  regarded  him.  These  were  by  no  means  diminished 
by  the  quarrel,  open  or  silent,  which  lasted  for  nearly  thirty 
years  between  him  and  the  two  popes  Alexander  VII.  and 
Innocent  XI.  He  remained,  notwithstanding,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  church  her  faithful  champion,  her  shield  and  sword, 
the  enemy  of  her  foes.  With  the  popes  who  succeeded  the 
implacable  Innocent  XL,  friendly  relations  were  restored, 
and  under  Alexander  VIII.,  Innocent  XII.,  and  Clement  XL, 
Koine  readily  learnt  to  revere  in  Louis  the  most  Christian 
majesty,  the  eldest  son  of  the  church,  and  to  bestow  her 
favours  upon  him.  At  the  time  of  the  first  war  with  Hol- 
land, Buonvisi,  then  papal  nuncio  in  Cologne,  and  afterwards 
cardinal,  had  already  laid  much  stress  upon  the  advantage 
to  be  gained  by  the  church  from  the  complete  humiliation 
of  the  Dutch,  upon  which  account  he  had  persuaded  the 
emperor  to  render  them  no  assistance.  The  French  bishops 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  287 

therefore,  in  comparing  what  the  king  had  done  for  the 
church  to  the  acts  of  a  Constantine  or  a  Theodosius, 
were  hardly  guilty  of  exaggeration.  It  would  have  been 
more  appropriate  to  liken  him  to  Justinian,  to  whose  reign 
that  of  Louis  offers  a  striking  resemblance.  It  would, 
however,  be  difficult  to  find  any  monarch  in  the  early 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era  who  laboured  as  earnestly  as 
Louis  did  by  every  means  in  his  power,  by  arms,  by  influence, 
by  diplomatic  negotiation,  and  by  the  expenditure  of  money, 
to  promote  the  advantage  of  the  church  in  the  form  that 
was  set  before  him  by  the  advisers  of  his  conscience.  In 
the  college  of  cardinals,  and  even  amongst  the  Italians, 
Louis  consequently  had  a  number  of  adherents  always  ready 
to  further  his  interests  with  the  Curia.  The  choice  at  the 
papal  elections  generally  fell  upon  the  individual  whom 
he  had  recommended  and  who  obtained  the  support  of  his 
ambassador  and  of  the  French  cardinals.  More  than  one 
pope  after  his  election  declared  that  he  owed  his  elevation 
to  the  French  King.  Even  in  the  dispute  with  Innocent  XI 
when  Louis,  through  the  councillor  of  state  Denis  Talon, 
publicly  accused  the  pope  of  favouring  the  Jansenist  heresy, 
the  greater  portion  of  the  clergy,  and  above  all  the  Jesuits, 
took  part  with  the  king.  Clement  XI.  bestowed  upon  him 
a  mark  of  confidence  such  as  had  never  previously  fallen  to 
the  lot  of  any  monarch ;  he  submitted  to  him,  yet  in  the 
greatest  secrecy,  the  scheme  of  his  dogmatic  bull  Vineam 
domini,  for  criticism  and  approbation,  in  order  that  after 
its  publication  it  might  meet  with  no  opposition  in  France. 
Innocent  XII.  also  sought  the  approval  of  the  king  before 
nominating  as  cardinal  the  Abbot  Sfondrati,  who  had  written 
against  the  Gallican  doctrine. 

Any  one  who  has  made  himself  familiar  with  the  beha- 
viour in  former  times  of  the  Eoman  see  towards  Germany, 
Italy,  and  Spain,  may  feel  considerable  surprise  that  the 
whole  system  of  royal  interference  in  church  government, 
carried  on  by  Louis,  should  have  been  so  quietly  accepted 
in  Kome.  It  was  not  merely  tolerated,  it  was  sanctioned, 


288  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

and,  moreover,  supported  by  the  whole  apparatus  of  indul- 
gences and  dispensations  of  which  the  Curia  disposed,  and 
occasionally  Louis  even  received  special  thanks  after  having 
inflicted  some  heavy  punishment  upon  theologians  whose 
writings  had  given  offence  in  Eome.  Clement  XI.  wrote 
to  him  to  the  effect  that  he  distinguished  himself  by 
a  wisdom  in  ecclesiastical  matters  that  was  quite  remark- 
able. 

The  same  pope  in  a  speech  before  the  cardinals  pub- 
licly testified  his  admiration  for  the  king  in  terms  suffi- 
ciently glowing  to  satisfy  even  the  monarch  himself.  '  He 
has,'  said  the  pontiff,  '  exhibited  all  the  Catholic  virtues  ; 
he  has  been  the  most  powerful  guardian  and  undaunted 
champion  of  the  Catholic  faith,  full  of  justice,  prudence, 
piety,  religious  zeal,  and  magnanimity.  He  has  displayed 
his  zeal  for  religion  in  the  most  signal  manner  by  freeing 
France  in  the  space  of  a  few  months  from  the  errors  of 
Protestantism,  and  by  upholding  and  putting  into  effect  for 
a  number  of  years  the  papal  decrees  against  Jansenism.' 

Even  Innocent  XI.  did  not  venture  to  formulate  against 
such  a  monarch  any  general  denunciation  of  his  dealings 
with  the  church,  notwithstanding  that  it  went  far  beyond 
mere  guardianship,  and  amounted  in  truth  to  complete 
dominion  exercised  under  the  eyes,  and  often  with  the  con- 
nivance, of  the  nuncio.  The  pope  contented  himself  with 
breaking  one  thread  of  the  net,  the  right  of  the  Regale, 
yet  even  in  this  matter  he  was  obliged  to  yield,  for  the 
clergy,  delighted  with  the  edict  of  October  22,  1685,  held 
fast  to  the  king.  The  importance  of  the  fact  that  king  and 
clergy,  inseparably  allied,  alternately  swayed  and  governed 
one  another,  was  duly  appreciated  in  Kome.  Alexander  VIII. 
declared  that  in  the  affair  of  the  declaration  of  1682  he 
entirely  sided  with  the  king,  because  the  bishops  conformed 
their  views  and  religion  entirely  to  his  wishes,  and  were 
equally  ready,  at  his  behest,  to  separate  themselves  from  the 
Eoman  see,  or  to  recognise  its  infallibility.  Fenelon  re- 
ported the  same  to  Kome.  Forcible  language  and  authori- 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  289 

tative  decrees  could  alter  nothing  in  a  situation  which  the 
Curia  had  itself,  step  by  step,  formed  and  established. 
Louis,  so  far  as  his  relation  with  the  papal  chair  was  con- 
cerned, was  animated  by  two  motives.  His  bitter  hatred 
against  all  that  he  had  been  led  to  connect  with  Janse- 
nism prompted  him  to  extend  the  widest  recognition  to  the 
principles  and  claims  of  Rome  in  doctrinal  matters,  for  in 
the  sphere  of  conscience  he  felt  the  insufficiency  of  his  own 
discernment.  Yet,  at  another  time,  either  the  idea  occurred 
to  himself,  or  was  suggested  by  others,  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  papal  supremacy  over  states  and  monarchs,  and  the 
right  to  depose  princes  and  absolve  nations  from  their  alle- 
giance, which  the  popes  had  so  pompously  proclaimed  and 
exercised,  was  inseparable  from  the  theory  of  papal  infalli- 
bility. Thus  he  was  induced  at  one  moment  to  call  upon 
the  clergy  to  renounce  the  defensive  formulae  and  reserva- 
tions of  the  Gallican  Church,  and  at  another  to  command 
strict  adherence  to,  and  the  public  observance  of,  the  Galli- 
can system. 

That  Louis,  despite  his  zeal  for  the  church,  should 
have  fallen  into  prolonged  disputes  with  the  two  popes 
Alexander  VII.  and  Innocent  XL,  happened  in  each  case 
from  a  different  cause. 

The  difficulty  with  Alexander  came  to  Louis  as  a  legacy 
from  Mazarin ;  the  hatred  borne  by  the  two  cardinals,  Chigi 
and  Mazarin,  for  one  another,  dated  from  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia  ;  the  latter  had  endeavoured  to  exclude  the  other 
from  the  papacy,  and  with  that  intent  had  caused  the 
young  king,  then  only  seventeen  years  of  age,  to  write  a 
letter  to  Rome  injurious  to  the  interests  of  Chigi.  Chigi, 
who  had  been  elected  notwithstanding,  was  the  more  inclined 
to  favour  the  Spanish  party  just  at  the  time,  when,  owing 
to  the  large  amount  of  church  patronage  at  the  disposal  of 
the  Spanish  government  in  Italy,  that  party  was  predominant 
in  the  Curia.  It  was  an  additional  grievance  to  Rome 
when  Mazarin  concluded  the  Peace  of  the  Pyrenees  with 
Spain,  without  consulting  the  Roman  see ;  and  thus  seri- 

u 


290  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

ously  damaged  the  position  of  the  papacy  in  Europe,  by 
depriving  it  of  the  influence  it  had  hitherto  exercised  in 
politics.  On  the  whole  Louis  came  off  victorious  in  this 
dispute. 

More  serious,  and  more  fruitful  of  consequences,  was 
the  breach  which  followed  between  Louis  and  Innocent  XI. 
It  was  curious  that  at  that  time  Louis's  two  most  deter- 
mined and  dangerous  opponents  should  have  been  the  men 
who  stood,  the  one  at  the  head  of  the  Catholic  and  the 
other  at  the  head  of  the  Protestant  world — Pope  Inno- 
cent XI.  and  Prince  William  of  Orange.  Innocent  de- 
servedly enjoyed  the  reputation  throughout  Europe  of  a 
morally  upright,  pious,  and  moderate  man,  who  fulfilled 
the  duties  of  his  high  position  with  delicate  conscientious- 
ness. Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics  honoured  in  him  a 
pattern  of  priestly  virtue ;  so  much  so  that  the  French 
bishops,  at  the  very  time  when  the  dispute  between  Inno- 
cent and  the  king  was  at  its  height,  and  they  themselves 
had  taken  the  part  of  the  latter,  declared,  in  a  hortatory 
address  to  the  Protestants  of  the  country,  that  now,  whilst 
the  church  was  ruled  by  a  pope  who  was  an  example  of 
holiness  before  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world,  was  the  pro- 
pitious moment  for  them  to  endeavour  to  return  to  unity. 
Innocent  threw  himself  energetically  upon  the  side  of  the 
emperor,  who  was  just  then  engaged  in  a  severe  struggle 
with  the  Turks  for  the  liberation  of  Hungary  ;  in  his  eyes 
Louis  appeared  as  the  chief  disturber  of  the  peace  of  Europe 
at  a  time  when  all  the  Christian  powers  ought  to  have  made 
common  cause  against  the  hereditary  foe  in  the  East.  He 
was  also  annoyed  that  Louis  should  monopolise  for  himself 
the  mastery  over  the  clergy  and  over  ecclesiastical  affairs 
in  France.  The  king,  however,  bitterly  resented  the  fact 
that  he,  the  champion  of  Christendom,  who  had  turned 
every  war  to  the  profit  of  the  church,  should  meet  upon  all 
sides  with  opposition  from  the  pope — the  same  pope,  too 
who  but  a  few  years  before,  at  the  outset  of  the  quarrel  in 
1678,  had  borne  witness  that  the  great  services  rendered 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  291 

by  Louis,  and  the  reputation  he  had  won  in  the  cause  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  had  placed  him  upon  a  level  with  the 
most  glorious  of  his  predecessors.  Moreover  he  could  not 
forget  that  his  watchful  zeal  for  church  orthodoxy,  and  for 
the  extirpation  of  Jansenism,  for  which  the  possession  of  his 
royal  prerogative  was  indispensable,  was  just  what  had 
stirred  the  resentment  of  the  pope  against  him.  The 
revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  appeared  likely  to  prove 
a  means  of  reconciliation  between  the  pope  and  the  king, 
for  Innocent  professed  himself  highly  delighted  at  the  step, 
commended  it  in  a  speech  to  the  cardinals,  and  was  not 
stingy  of  his  praises.  But  the  pope  did  not  think  proper 
to  tolerate  the  Gallican  Declaration  of  1682,  and  thirty 
episcopal  sees  remained  vacant  in  consequence;  Innocent 
refusing  to  ratify  the  nominations  to  them.  Steps  were 
thereupon  taken  in  Paris  to  induce  the  pope  to  summon  a 
general  council.  This  threatened  to  create  a  situation  which 
might  have  become  dangerous  and  unpleasant  for  Louis. 
A  trustworthy  politician,  residing  at  that  time  in  Paris, 
asserts  that  this  circumstance  contributed  to  bring  about 
the  new  attack  on  Germany,  and  the  outbreak  of  an  eight 
years'  war  which  proved  very  disastrous  for  both  countries, 
but  of  which  the  true  motive  has  always  remained  a  mys- 
tery. He  says  that  Louvois  had  persuaded  the  king  of  the 
necessity  of  terrifying  the  pope  into  submission,  and  a  desire 
for  reconciliation,  by  the  prospect  of  a  great  European  war, 
and  of  the  danger  which  would  consequently  accrue  to  the 
States  of  the  Church.  The  object  was  not  attained.  It 
may  account,  however,  for  the  war  having  been  prosecuted 
in  Germany  by  the  French  generals  in  the  name  of  religion. 
Under  this  pretext  churches  and  schools  were  wrested  from 
the  Protestants,  and  the  Catholic  counter-reformation  every- 
where enforced  in  the  Palatinate. 

None  of  his  predecessors,  certainly  no  monarch,  had 
possessed  such  an  amount  of  sovereign  power  as  Louis  had 
inherited.  This  he  was  constantly  occupied  in  increasing. 
When  he  assumed  the  government  the  monarchy  was  the 

v  2 


292  THE  POLICY   OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

most  compact  and  the  most  richly  provided  with  money  of 
any  in  existence.  He  knew  that  the  nation  expected  him 
to  perform  deeds  of  which  it  might  be  proud.  He  was 
strongly  imbued  with  the  wish  to  put  the  means  which  he 
had  in  his  hand  to  a  use  proportioned  to  the  aspirations, 
and  worthy  of  the  greatness,  of  France.  Germany  and  the 
Netherlands  were  the  first  arenas  in  which  he  tried  his 
skill.  It  is  important  to  examine  into  the  views  which  he 
himself  held  with  regard  to  his  relations  with  the  German 
Empire.  He  has  himself  described  them  to  us. 

Louis  had  formed  his  own  conception  as  to  the  position 
which  he  occupied  in  relation  to  Germany  and  its  empire. 
Our  dynasty,  he  says,  formerly  reigned  over  France,  the 
Netherlands,  Germany,  Italy,  and  the  greater  part  of 
Spain ;  Charles  the  Great  assumed  in  consequence  the 
title  of  emperor.  His  courage  and  the  victories  which  he 
gained  raised  him  to  this  eminence.  For— says  Louis, 
thinking  of  the  then  existing  Carlovingian  monarch  of  France 
— where  these  divine  gifts  of  courage  and  success  are  to  be 
found,  they  are  tokens  that  God  has  made  choice  of  a 
sovereign  to  whom  the  other  powers  must  submit.  It  is 
evident  that  he  regards  the  empire  as  a  sovereignty  esta- 
blished for  the  benefit  of  the  princes  of  his  own  house.  The 
Capetians,  in  his  eyes,  are  identical  with  the  Carlovin- 
gians.  The  present  emperors  do  not,  he  considers,  merit 
that  high-sounding  title,  being  in  reality  no  more  than  the 
subordinate  and  dependent  captains-general  of  a  German 
Eepublic  of  recent  date.  He  is  offended  that  at  the  papal 
and  other  courts  the  imperial  ambassador  takes  precedence 
of  the  French  ambassador.  He  thinks  that  there  ought 
always  to  be  in  existence  a  genuine  empire  which,  like  the 
Eoman  and  Carlovingian  empires  of  old,  should  be  the 
secular  head  of  Christendom  ;  and  this  dignity  properly 
belongs  to  himself  as  the  only  true  descendant  of  Charles 
and  the  only -rightful  representative  of  the  Carlovingian 
house,  and  because  he  alone  has  sufficient  power  to  uphold 
the  empire,  and  to  assert  the  authority  which  befits  it. 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  293 

This  is  true  to  a  certain  extent,  but  the  assertion  about  the 
Carlovingian  inheritance  was  a  fiction  dressed  up  to  suit 
the  requirements  of  the  royal  diplomacy.  Hugh  Capet  was 
not  of  Carlovingian,  but  of  Saxon  origin.  He  had  been 
elected  through  the  interference  of  his  friend  Adalbert, 
Archbishop  of  Ehehns,  in  open  contempt  of  the  right  of  in- 
heritance, and  by  setting  aside  the  lawful  heir.  Charles  the 
Great,  on  the  contrary,  was  by  birth  and  breeding  a  German, 
wore  the  German  costume,  lived  chiefly  in  Germany,  held 
most  of  his  public  assemblies  there,  and  during  his  long 
reign  went  only  once  to  Paris,  the  royal  residence  of  the 
Merovingians.  A  successor  to  Charles,  therefore,  if  to  be 
found  at  all,  could  only  be  sought  for  in  Germany. 

This  subject  was  connected  in  Louis's  mind  with  a 
double  hope  and  a  double  claim.  If  he  could  succeed, 
whether  by  force  of  arms  or  through  his  right  of  succession 
to  a  part  of  Spain,  in  enlarging  and  transforming  his  king- 
dom of  France  into  a  great  Carlovingian  power,  the  imperial 
crown  would  devolve  upon  him  as  a  matter  of  course.  He 
was  sure  of  the  votes  of  the  spiritual  electors,  and  of  the 
two  Wittelsbach  votes  in  the  Palatinate  and  in  Bavaria ; 
the  remaining  two  would  easily  be  secured  by  money  or 
other  means.  Once  elected,  he  would  abolish  the  electoral 
system  and  re-establish  hereditary  succession,  of  which  the 
Germans  had  foolishly  allowed  themselves  to  be  deprived. 
The  pope  would  simply  accept  the  accomplished  fact,  or, 
acting  upon  the  old  theory  still  maintained  in  Eome  of  the 
pope's  right  to  transfer  the  imperial  dignity,  would  declare 
that  he  had  deprived  the  Germans  of  the  imperial  title, 
half  of  them  being  heretical,  to  bestow  it  upon  the  French 
who  were  wholly  Catholic.  In  Louis's  able  hands  the  inter- 
national significance  of  the  imperial  dignity,  which  had  now 
sunk  into  abeyance,  would  be  revived ;  Paris  with  Versailles 
would  become  a  second  Rome,  the  centre  of  the  Western 
world ;  the  empire  by  degrees  be  centralised ;  and  Louis  would 
show  the  world  what  strength  was  latent  in  the  idea  of  a 
supreme  head  and  advocate  over  Christendom. 


294  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

Louis  asserts  in  his  memoranda,  that,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  dissensions  of  the  royal  family,  France  would  long 
before  have  become  the  mistress  of  the  world.     The  royal 
family  was  now  united,  all  its  princes  as  submissive  to  him 
as  he  could  possibly  desire.     To  the  nation,  above  all  to  the 
clergy,  and  to   the  nobility  who  desired   distinctions  and 
titles,  the  transference  of  the  empire  would  have  been  ex- 
ceedingly welcome.     To  set  aside  once  for  all  the  anomaly 
by  which  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  was  committed  to  the 
keeping,  no  longer  of  the  foremost  and  most  capable  nation 
of  the  universe,  nor  of  the  eldest  son  of  the  church,  but  of 
a  foreign  race  of  recent  origin,  would  in  French  eyes  be  the 
most  glorious  act  which  the  king  could  accomplish.     In  the 
French  empire  of  the  Bourbons  would  be  seen  the  exact 
counterpart  of  German  history.    Whereas  the  Germans  had 
looked  on,  partly  submissive  and  partly  co-operating,  whilst 
their  kingdom  was  being  ruined  and  the  empire  shorn  of  its 
privileges,  the  royal  power  and  the  imperial  dignity  would 
be  protected  and  strengthened  in  the  hands  of  the  French ; 
and  the  empire,  in  particular,  would  become  in  reality  all 
that  the  Germans  had  asserted  it  to  be  in  theory,  but  had 
practically  suffered  to  be  destroyed  or  forfeited.     Louis  de 
Bourbon  as  emperor  would  understand  how  to  give  effect 
to  the  image  of  the  two  swords,  how  to  pose  as  the  '  living 
law  upon   earth,'  the   secular  head   of  Christendom  and 
*  leader   of   kings' — as   Alphonso   of   Naples    termed    the 
emperor — side  by  side  with  the  spiritual  head. 

Louis  had  not  originated  his  own  views  with  regard  to 
the  empire  and  to  the  rights  of  the  French  crown  over  Ger- 
many ;  they  had  been  held  long  before  by  both  statesmen 
and  jurists.  As  early  as  1632,  under  Eichelieu's  govern- 
ment, De  Cassan,  a  councillor  of  the  tribunal  of  Beziers, 
had  written  a  book  to  prove  that  the  Kings  of  France,  as  the 
descendants  of  Charles  and  of  the  Frankish  princes  who 
had  taken  possession  of  Gaul,  had  the  right  of  jurisdiction 
over  Germany.  Again,  in  1662,  a  state  paper  drawn  up  by 
the  parliamentary  councillor  Aubery  had  appeared  in  Paris, 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  295 

which  developed  the  same  thought,  founded  on  the  legal 
maxim  of  the  Salic  Law,  that  territories  obtained  or  con- 
quered by  the  French  Kings  were  acquired  for  the  state, 
the  continuity  of  which  remained  unbroken  and  its  rights 
inalienable  even  when  another  dynasty  arose. 

The  book  excited  great  attention ;  but  even  in  Germany 
we  meet  with  similar  views,  although  not  founded  perhaps 
upon  such  unhistorical  assumptions.  The  great  universal 
historian  Herman  Conring,  after  Leibnitz  the  most  versa- 
tile and  gifted  scholar  of  Germany,  longed  for  an  empire 
under  a  new  Charles  the  Great — who  could  be  none  other 
than  Louis — as  being,  he  said,  the  least  of  all  evils.  The 
pension  granted  to  him  by  Colbert  is  supposed  to  have  had 
to  do  with  his  writing  in  that  strain,  but  to  me  his  private 
letters  appear  to  prove  that,  with  the  dread  of  Turkish 
ascendency  still  prevalent,  he  held  a  strong  empire  to  be 
necessary  for  the  protection  of  Christendom,  and  saw  in 
Louis  the  only  monarch  capable  of  giving  it  practical  shape. 

The  Treaties  of  Westphalia  and  the  Pyrenees  placed 
France  in  an  extremely  favourable  situation.  Louis  quickly 
discovered  that  he  had  only  to  stretch  out  his  hand  to  be- 
come more  powerful  in  Germany  than  the  emperor.  The 
Electors  of  the  Ehine  had  decidedly  more  to  fear  from  him 
than  from  the  emperor.  The  other  princes  were  apprehen- 
sive lest  by  siding  with  the  latter  they  might  forfeit  the  ad- 
vantages guaranteed  to  them  at  the  time  of  the  peace  by 
France  and  Sweden ;  the  more  so,  because  Sweden  was  firmly 
united  with  France  through  common  interest  as  well  as 
through  the  influence  of  French  gold.  A  German  policy 
could  not,  properly,  be  said  to  exist.  In  Vienna  the  welfare 
of  the  state  was  constantly  made  subordinate  to  dynastic 
advantage.  There  was  a  Catholic  and  Protestant,  a  Saxon 
and  a  Bavarian  policy ;  a  genuine  German  policy  had  yet  to 
arise.  Louis  himself  at  a  later  period  did  his  best  towards 
it — at  least  towards  preparing  the  way  for  it. 

It  soon,  then,  became  apparent  that  Louis  nad  broken 
with  the  policy  of  his  grandfather  and  of  the  two  cardinals. 


296  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  « 

They  had  secured  the  power  and  greatness  of  France,  and 
placed  her  in  the  foremost  rank  on  the  Continent,  by  coun- 
tenancing the  Protestant  cause  in  Germany  and  the  Nether- 
lands, and  by  helping  to  break  down  the  threatening  power 
of  the  Habsburgs.  Cromwell  had  recently  turned  the  policy 
of  England  in  the  direction  of  diplomatic  interference  in 
behalf  of  Protestantism,  with  such  success  that  even  Maza- 
rin  had  showed  himself  compliant  in  the  matter  of  the 
Waldenses.  Where  was  now  the  power  that  could  protect 
the  Catholics  ?  Spain  was  not  in  a  position  to  defend  even 
herself;  the  countries  ruled  by  the  Emperor  Leopold  were 
suffering  heavily  from  the  results  of  the  long  war  and  of 
emigration ;  he  himself  was  in  continual  want  of  money  and 
scarcely  able  to  carry  on  the  war  against  the  Turks.  Louis 
appeared  to  himself  to  be  called  upon  to  fill  the  void.  He 
had  been  so  frequently  told,  and  was  so  firmly  convinced, 
that  this  mission,  the  most  exalted  possible  for  a  Christian 
ruler,  devolved  upon  him  by  divine  appointment,  that  it 
became  an  essential  part  of  this  belief  that  he  should  not 
consider  himself  bound  by  international  treaties  if  they 
happened  to  form  an  obstacle  in  his  appointed  path.  He 
considered  it  his  office  to  impose  treaties  upon  others,  but 
not  particularly  incumbent  upon  him  to  maintain  them 
conscientiously  himself;  that  was  not,  he  considered,  to  be 
expected,  since  promises,  when  they  became  inconvenient, 
ought  not  to  be  taken  more  literally  than  expressions  of 
courtesy.  This  feature  of  his  political  system,  with  its 
attendant  results,  inspired  more  and  more  suspicion,  and 
no  accusation  was  more  frequently  or  bitterly  levelled  against 
him  throughout  Europe  than  that  of  untrust worthiness  and 
recklessness  in  breaking  his  promises. 

The  foundation  and  aim  of  his  policy  was  this  :  that  his 
house  should  assume  the  position  and  acquire  the  supremacy 
which  the  house  of  Habsburg  had  held  for  130  years.  That 
family  had  continued  throughout  that  period  to  be  the 
fighting  arm  of  the  Roman  Church ;  by  its  help  and  under 
its  shelter  the  reaction  had  set  in  which  had  led  to  the 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  297 

return  of  millions  of  perverted  souls  to  the  church.  But 
since  1648  this  supremacy  had  been  broken,  and  no  revival 
of  it  would  be  possible  if  Louis  felt  himself  called  upon  to 
assume  the  diminished  yet  still  indispensable  dignity  and 
responsibility  of  leader  and  protector  of  the  Catholic  states ; 
to  carry  forward  with  the  weight  of  his  powerful  arm  the 
work  of  reaction  or  counter-reformation  ;  and  thus  to  follow 
the  bright  example  left  by  the  German  house  of  Habs- 
burg.  Two  things  he  considered  were  needful  to  him  for 
this  purpose  :  the  imperial  crown  upon  which  Henry  IV., 
and  later,  Mazarin,  had  already  cast  covetous  glances,  and  an 
addition  of  territory  from  the  Spanish  inheritance.  With  a 
view  to  both  of  these  objects,  Protestant  alliances  were,  at 
least  for  a  time,  indispensable  to  him,  and  so  also  was  the 
goodwill  or  at  any  rate  the  peaceful  attitude  of  Protestant 
states  and  princes.  He  thus  found  himself  in  a  difficult 
position  :  on  the  one  hand,  he  was  desirous  and  determined  to 
offer  to  the  hierarchy  by  his  actions  some  security  that  he 
was  called  and  was  worthy  to  be  the  successor  of  Philip  II.  and 
Ferdinand  II.,  and  therefore  under  the  necessity  of  accom- 
plishing a  great  work  of  conversion ;  on  the  other  hand,  he 
was  hampered  by  the  policy  of  religious  toleration  by  which 
his  grandfather  and  the  two  cardinals  had  made  France 
great  and  strong.  The  most  important  point  for  him  was 
to  choose  the  right  moment  for  showing  himself  to  the  world 
in  his  true  character  when,  at  the  risk  of  being  obliged  to 
throw  over  his  Protestant  allies,  he  might  enter  upon  the 
path  of  the  Yalois,  of  Ferdinand,  and  of  Philip.  He  waited 
twenty-four  years  before  he  made  the  decisive  step  which 
left  no  further  room  for  doubt. 

It  may  be  said  that,  in  a  certain  sense,  all  the  wars  in 
which  Louis  engaged  were  religious  wars,  or  at  least  that 
religion  had  to  do  with  them — if  it  was  not  the  first  and  most 
immediate  motive — just  as  the  great  wars  before  his  time, 
when  not  simply  dynastic,  most  frequently  sprang  from  a 
combination  of  political  with  religious  causes.  The  Thirty 
Years'  War  was  essentially  a  religious  war,  however  much 


298  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

the  fact  may  have  been  disputed,  and  remained  so  to  the 
end,  however  much  political  interests  and  questions  of 
might  and  right  became  implicated  in  it.  The  Peace  of 
Westphalia,  the  repudiation  of  it  by  the  papacy,  and  the 
questions  upon  which  the  earlier  attempts  at  negotiation 
had  failed,  leave  no  doubt  upon  this  point.  For  only  after 
the  heavy  blows  of  1647  and  1648  had  fallen,  and  constant 
disaster  pursued  the  imperial  arms — only,  indeed,  when 
Austria  was  utterly  exhausted — did  the  emperor  give  in  to 
that  which  was  inevitable,  and  consent  to  admit  the  principle 
of  the  equal  rights  of  both  churches,  for  the  empire,  though 
not  for  his  hereditary  dominions,  and  resolve  to  accept  the 
consequences  which  must  ensue. 

But  again,  after  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  and  even  after 
the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  religious  interests 
were  mixed  up  with  the  question  of  European  supremacy 
in  every  war  that  broke  out.  A  Catholic  monarch  could 
only  take  upon  himself  and  maintain  the  lead  amongst  the 
Catholic  nations  and  states  by  making  himself  at  the  same 
time  the  advocate  of  Catholic  interests  and  ecclesiastical 
claims  ;  a  Protestant  state  could  only  aspire  to  leadership 
by  putting  itself  forward  as  the  guardian  of  Protestantism 
throughout  Europe  after  the  pattern  of  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus  or  Cromwell.  If  Louis's  object  were  to  supplant 
the  house  of  Habsburg  he  must  equal  if  not  excel  it  in  his 
zeal  for  the  church.  And,  indeed,  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  France  expected  nothing  less  from  him.  France 
especially  had  been  the  theatre  of  bloody  religious  strug- 
gles. In  the  thirteenth  century  the  Albigensian  war,  and 
in  the  sixteenth  the  struggle  between  the  Huguenots  and 
the  League,  were  cases  in  which  the  religious  question  was 
paramount  and  other  interests  had  been  forced  to  conceal 
themselves  under  the  mask  of  piety.  The  sentiments  of  the 
French  which  had  instigated  those  wars  had  not  fundamen- 
tally altered  in  Louis's  time.  The  peace  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  was  a  mere  truce.  The  Peace  of  Westphalia  had 
traced  boundary  lines  and  thrown  up  bulwarks  that  were 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV 

needful  for  the  security  of  the  German  peoples  against 
religious  coercion,  but  they  were  insufficient,  as  was  soon 
apparent.     It  was  well-nigh  impossible  that  Louis  or  any  of 
his  coreligionists  should  acknowledge  the  right  of  liberty  of 
conscience.   From  first  to  last  the  lesson  had  been  impressed 
upon  him  that  the   monarch's  duty  was,  not   to  tolerate 
error,  but  to  use  force  if  needful  in  driving  back  schismatics 
into  the  fold  of  the  church.    When  his  victories  had  brought 
new  subjects  under  his  rule,  when  his  authority  was  suffi- 
ciently assured  to  permit  him    to  dictate  treaties  and  to 
impose  conditions  upon  independent  states,   and  to  busy 
himself  even  beyond  the  frontier  of  France  about  seeking 
the  advantage  and  extension  of  the  church,  and  weakening 
and  diminishing  the  number  of  the  heretics,  then  any  for- 
bearance shown  to  the  holders  of  other  beliefs,  or  toleration 
of  their  rights,  would  seem  like  a  neglect  of  the  highest 
duties,  and   a  damning  proof   of  indifferentism.      Conse- 
quently all  the  wars  which   Louis  undertook,  even  those 
which  he  waged  against  Spain  and  the  emperor,  appeared 
to  him  to  rest  upon  religious  motives,  a  source  from  which 
he  drew  perfect  justification  for  them.     For  he  was  con- 
vinced that  Providence  had  raised  him  up  to  be  in  his  time 
the  true  guardian  and  champion  of  the  church  ;  and,  in  order 
to  spread  the  faith,  he  must  enlarge  his  own  kingdom  and 
widen  the  limits  of  his  power. 

In  his  own  day  Louis  was  constantly  accused  of  aiming 
at  universal  monarchy.  The  Spaniards  were  the  first  to 
raise  the  cry  against  him,  for  the  sake  of  inducing  other 
states  to  join  in  a  coalition  with  them.  This  accusation 
must  be  considerably  modified ;  Frederick  the  Great  was 
not  mistaken  in  declaring  the  project  of  a  French  universal 
monarchy  to  be  a  fiction,  a  bugbear  invented  to  terrify 
the  simple  and  to  serve  the  designs  of  the  Habsburgs. 
The  period  previous  to  the  publication  of  the  will  of  Charles 
II.,  and  that  which  followed  after  the  year  1700,  must  be 
taken  separately.  During  the  former  period  it  had  been 
Louis's  aim  to  enlarge  and  fortify  the  boundary  of  France  by 


300  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

the  acquisition  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  including  a 
portion  of  the  Dutch  Eepublic,  besides  extending  his  frontier 
towards  Germany  as  far  as  the  Ehine.  He  contemplated 
planting  his  foot  in  Italy  by  means  of  an  exchange  of  terri- 
tory or  through  the  acquisition  by  force  of  arms  of  Savoy 
and  Piedmont,  as  well  as  of  Milan,  then  still  Spanish.  It 
may  appear  strange  that  he  never  seriously  undertook  to 
obtain  the  concession  of  the  country  over  which  he  had  the 
most  justifiable  claims,  viz.  Navarre ;  he  did  indeed  formulate 
his  claims,  but  there  the  matter  remained.  France  was  to 
become  the  first  power  in  Europe  both  on  land  and  sea ;  the 
Mediterranean  was  to  be  turned  into  a  French  lake  ;  and 
all  this  was  to  be  crowned  by  the  imperial  dignity,  which,  if 
the  Emperor  Leopold  had  died  sooner,  before  the  whole  of 
Central  Europe  had  armed  itself  against  Louis,  the  latter 
would  certainly  not  have  allowed  to  escape  him.  Such  an 
empire  as  this  would  have  made  itself  felt  energetically 
in  the  internal  affairs  of  Germany.  The  same  fate — 
brought  about  of  course  more  cautiously  and  by  carefully 
measured  steps — would  attend  the  Protestant  churches  of 
Germany  as  had  overtaken  their  brethren  in  France. 
England,  before  the  year  1688,  was  considered  by  Louis  to 
be  safe  and  to  require  no  check  from  him,  the  two  Stuarts, 
Charles  and  James,  being  in  his  pay,  and  unable  without 
his  assistance  to  venture  upon  any  considerable  undertaking. 
He  had  promised  that  he  would  give  substantial  assistance, 
in  men  and  money,  to  the  designs  of  the  two  brothers  for 
the  catholicising  of  England,  and  he  kept  his  word. 
England,  Catholic  and  absolutist,  or,  if  fortune  were  less 
favourable,  distracted  by  ecclesiastical  and  political  schisms, 
would  have  become  still  more  dependent  upon  France  than 
it  had  been  at  any  time  under  the  Stuarts. 

The  fall  of  James  II.  in  England,  the  elevation  of 
William  of  Orange,  the  great  coalition  against  France — 
these  severe  blows  annihilated  many  of  his  hopes ;  but  he 
was  not  thereby  shaken  in  his  central  idea  of  a  French 
empire  over  the  Continent ;  the  prospect  still  remained  to 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  801 

him  almost  certain  of  a  great  addition  of  territory  and  power 
whenever  the  event,  now  imminent,  of  the  vacancy  of  the 
Spanish  throne  should  occur. 

The  will  of  Charles  II.  summoned  the  grandson  of  Louis 
to  assume  the  undivided  possession  of  the  Spanish  Kingdom. 
At  once  the  hopes  which  Louis  had  cherished  for  forty  years 
of  adding  Belgium  and  Italy  to  France  out  of  the  Spanish 
inheritance,  fell  to  the  ground.  Henceforth  he  consoled 
himself  with  the  expectation  that  France,  and  Spain  reju- 
venated by  his  grandson,  would,  as  two  strictly  allied  king- 
doms, maintain  the  supremacy  over  Southern  Europe 
together  with  the  mastery  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea — a 
position  which  would  have  opened  a  glorious  future  to  the 
two  Bourbon  houses  as  the  protectors  of  Southern  Christen- 
dom against  Osmanli  oppression,  and  the  pirates  of  Barbary. 
Things  turned  out  otherwise  ! 

Let  us  now  examine  more  closely  into  Louis's  policy. 
The  experience  of  Piedmont  and  Switzerland  showed  that  he 
well  understood  how  to  despoil  the  smaller  neighbouring 
states  and  make  them  serviceable  to  his  ends.  Both  these 
countries,  in  the  prolonged  struggle  between  the  Habsburgs 
and  France,  had  gathered  strength  by  the  prudent  yet  bold 
assertion  of  their  independence.  The  Swiss  confederation 
in  particular  had  extended  and  fortified  its  frontier,  and  had 
been  fortunate  in  preserving  it  intact,  although  its  territory 
lay  between  the  contending  powers.  Nevertheless  the  con- 
stant renewal  of  military  capitulations  and  treaties  of  alliance 
(the  last  in  1663)  by  which  the  king  was  kept  supplied  with 
large  bands  of  mercenaries,  to  such  an  extent  that  32,000 
Swiss  were  at  one  time  serving  under  his  standard,  formed 
a  pretext  upon  his  part  for  bringing  the  country  into  a  state 
of  galling  dependence  upon  France.  Subsidies  and  pen- 
sions continually  distributed,  and  forming  a  permanent  re- 
venue to  the  secret  agents  and  paid  creatures  of  Louis,  had 
this  result  that  they  were  to  be  found  in  all  the  councils  of 
the  cantons,  and  that  his  envoys  were  enabled  to  dictate 
measures  to  the  confederates  in  a  manner  which  made  them 


302  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

sensible  that  the  federation  was  dependent  upon  the  offen- 
sive and  defensive  alliance  of  France.  Even  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  the  federation  he  contrived  to  maintain  a  thinly 
veiled  supremacy.  The  taking  of  Franche-Comte  and 
Strasburg  and  the  erection  of  the  fortress  of  Hiiningen 
before  the  gate  of  Basle  completed  Switzerland's  depen- 
dence. His  designs  upon  Geneva,  which  he  thought  to 
betray  into  the  same  fate  as  Strasburg,  did  indeed  fail, 
thanks  to  the  energetic  interference  of  the  neighbouring 
cantons ;  nor  did  he  succeed  as  he  hoped  in  procuring 
Neuchatel  for  the  Prince  of  Conti;  the  Swiss  decided  in 
favour  of  the  King  of  Prussia.  But  again,  shortly  before  his 
death,  Louis  formed  a  tie  which,  had  he  lived,  might  easily 
have  brought  about  the  ruin  of  the  free  state.  He  con- 
cluded a  secret  treaty  with  those  Catholic  cantons  that  had 
been  embittered  by  their  defeat  in  the  religious  war  of  1712, 
promising  the  assistance  of  France  in  every  dispute  with 
the  reformed  cantons,  and  specifying  even  the  details  of  the 
advance  to  be  made  by  the  French  army  into  Switzerland. 

If  money,  diplomatic  skill,  and  intimidation  were  the 
means  by  which  he  triumphed  over  the  confederates,  it 
was,  in  Savoy-Piedmont,  rather  by  the  sharpness  of  the 
sword  and  by  a  treatment  similar  to  the  wasting  of  the 
Palatinate  that  he  aimed  at  making  both  prince  and 
country  the  instruments  of  his  purpose.  Victor  Ama- 
deus  II.  had  been  reduced  almost  to  the  position  of  a 
French  provincial  governor  in  his  own  dominions,  when 
the  marriage  of  his  two  daughters  with  Louis's  grandsons 
and  the  outbreak  of  the  War  of  Succession  raised  him 
again  to  a  more  independent  position,  and  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht  soon  afterwards  obtained  for  him,  in  exchange 
for  his  claims  upon  a  portion  of  the  Spanish  inheritance, 
a  large  increase  of  power  and  territory,  together  with  the 
title  of  King. 

The  Turkish  Empire  in  the  year  1661  had  already 
passed  the  zenith  of  its  power  and  begun  to  decline. 
France  was  the  State  towards  which  the  Porte  naturally 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  303 

turned  after  abandoning  its  old  spirit  of  defiance ;  enmity 
towards  the  emperor  formed  a  common  bond  between  the 
two  powers ;  the  French  ambassador  obtained  advantages 
for  the  Catholic  subjects  of  the  Porte,  firmans  for  the 
security  of  the  French  flag  against  the  pirate  states,  pro- 
tective rights  over  the  holy  places  belonging  to  the  Latins 
in  Jerusalem — rights  which  had  hitherto  belonged  to  the 
emperor.  But  the  loss  of  reputation  and  honour  which 
the  king  suffered  by  this  friendly  attitude  towards  the 
enemies  of  Christendom  was  not  outweighed  by  these 
advantages. 

In  Poland  some  of  the  most  influential  nobles  were  in 
his  pay ;  twice  he  attempted  to  obtain  the  election  of  a 
prince  of  his  house  to  the  throne,  so  that  he  might  secure 
the  alliance  of  this  power,  and  thus  be  enabled  to  threaten 
the  empire  in  the  rear.  A  majority  of  the  votes,  secured 
by  large  sums  of  money,  had  already  declared  for  the 
Prince  de  Conti,  when  a  power,  which  now  first  began 
to  equip  itself  for  interference  with  the  affairs  of  Europe, 
came  forward  to  oppose  him.  This  was  Kussia,  under 
Peter  the  Great.  Conti  was  thrown  over  and  the  Elector 
of  Saxony  was  chosen.  Louis's  influence  in  Warsaw, 
however,  remained  always  great  and  often  decisive,  and 
served  him  at  times  to  reduce  even  Brandenburg  to  sub- 
mission. 

Louis  was  exceedingly  skilful  in  the  art  of  paralysing 
his  opponents  by  raising  up  enemies  in  their  rear.  Thus 
he  rendered  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  powerless  by 
inducing  Sweden  to  declare  war  against  him.  He  fomented 
discontent  in  Hungary  in  order  to  weaken  the  emperor, 
and  supported  the  rebels  with  money  and  advice.  Portu- 
gal served  his  purpose  as  a  check  upon  Spain,  in  humbling 
her,  and  in  keeping  her  forces  occupied  on  the  Portuguese 
frontier.  At  the  Treaty  of  the  Pyrenees  Mazarin  had 
ignored  the  interests  of  Portugal  and  had  thereby  roused 
in  Madrid  fresh  hopes  of  reconquest.  But  Louis  soon 
renewed  friendly  relations  with  King  Alphonso,  concluded 


304  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

an  alliance  with  him,  and  sent  troops  to  his  aid.  Yet  the 
doom  which  awaited  his  ambitious  projects,  in  consequence 
of  the  acts  of  1685  and  1688,  was  feit  even  here.  Por- 
tugal needed  the  protection  of  a  naval  power ;  England, 
through  the  Methuen  Treaty,  succeeded  to  the  position 
which  Louis,  after  the  battle  of  La  Hogue,  could  no  longer 
maintain,  and  in  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession  Por- 
tugal was  ranged  upon  the  side  of  the  opponents  of  the 
French  King. 

In  England  Charles  II.  was  seated  upon  the  throne 
which  he  had  regained,  but  his  position  was  rendered 
uncomfortable  by  his  dependence  upon  Parliament.  Con- 
vinced that  in  England,  so  long  as  it  remained  Protestant, 
unlimited  monarchy  such  as  he  aspired  to  was  impossible, 
he  deceived  himself  with  the  idea  of  imposing  Catholicism 
upon  his  subjects  combined  with  a  despotic  government. 
A  double  revolution  of  the  sort  could  only  be  undertaken  with 
the  aid  of  his  cousin  Louis  both  in  men  and  money.  The 
secret  treaty  concluded  through  the  mediation  of  Charles's 
sister,  Henrietta,  Duchess  of  Orleans,  at  Dover,  in  1670, 
arranged  that  upon  the  receipt  of  four  million  livres  Charles 
should  declare  himself  a  Catholic  and  should  take  part  in 
the  war  which  Louis  was  preparing  to  carry  on  against  the 
Netherlands.  In  the  event  of  the  change  of  religion  caus- 
ing any  disturbance  the  descent  of  a  French  army  upon 
England  was  promised.  However,  nothing  of  all  this  came 
to  pass;  for  Charles  soon  perceived  that  as  a  national  mea- 
sure the  change  of  religion  was  impracticable,  and  as  a  per- 
sonal step  it  would  cost  him  his  crown.  In  Louis's  eyes  the 
return  of  England  to  Catholicism,  with  the  corresponding 
political  transformation,  was  merely  a  question  of  time,  as 
he  knew  that  the  Duke  of  York,  already  a  Catholic,  would 
take  the  work  in  hand  as  soon  as  he  ascended  the  throne, 
and  that  he,  the  powerful  neighbour,  would  be  called  upon 
to  play  an  important  part  in  it. 

Upon  the  pretext  of  a  claim  which  had  devolved  upon 
him  through  his  Spanish  wife,  Louis  in  1667  seized  upon 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  805 

the  Burgundian  frontier  and  thus  occasioned  the  formation 
of  the  first  coalition  against  him.  The  triple  alliance 
between  England,  Holland,  and  Sweden,  his  own  former 
friends  and  allies,  was  a  combination  which  either  Eichelieu 
or  Mazarin  would  assuredly  have  found  means  to  prevent. 
Still,  the  acquisition  of  such  towns  as  Lille,  Courtray, 
Douai,  and  Tournay  was  of  incalculable  value,  and  this 
was  secured  to  him  by  the  Peace  of  Aix  la  Chapelle. 

Four  year  later  Louis  entered  upon  a  war  which  even- 
tually led  him  much  further  than  he  wished  or  expected, 
and  revealed  to  watchful  politicians  a  glimpse  into  the 
secret  designs  of  his  policy.  Suddenly,  and  without  assign- 
ing reason,  he  descended  upon  the  Dutch  Eepublic,  having 
first  with  consummate  diplomatic  skill  contrived  to  isolate 
it  entirely.  This  was  not,  as  has  often  been  said,  an  act 
of  revenge  and  of  warlike  restlessness.  He  detested  the 
republic  which,  founded  upon  a  revolt  from  king  and  church, 
had  rapidly  risen  to  a  marvellous  pitch  of  prosperity,  to  the 
position  of  the  first  naval  and  commercial  power  of  Europe, 
and  the  guardianship  of  intellectual  freedom.  Numerous 
publications,  which  would  never  have  been  allowed  to 
appear  in  France,  found  their  way  from  thence  over  the 
border. 

Hitherto  the  most  useful  ally  of  France,  the  Dutch 
Eepublic  had  yet  been  the  stronghold  of  Protestantism  on 
the  Continent,  and  a  school  and  intellectual  arsenal  for 
Louis's  heretical  subjects.  Its  annihilation  would  have 
been  hailed  throughout  Europe  as  a  brilliant  triumph  for 
the  church.  The  overthrow  of  Holland  was  to  have  been 
the  preliminary  step  to  the  change  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Channel,  which  with  Louis's  help  was  to  transform  England 
from  a  Protestant  and  parliamentary  state  into  a  Catholic 
and  absolute  monarchy.  An  arrangement  had  been  made 
with  Charles  II.  The  Netherlands  were  to  be  partitioned 
between  France  and  England ;  the  former  naturally  appro- 
priating far  the  larger  share.  This  accomplished,  the 
Spanish  or  Belgian  provinces  would  all  the  more  surely  fall 

x 


806  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xt 

into  the  power  of  the  French  monarch.  The  plan  was 
frustrated  through  the  noble  self-sacrificing  resistance  of 
Holland  under  "William  of  Orange. 

The  year  1685  was  an  important  turning  point  in  the 
political  plans  of  Louis.  By  revoking  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
and  by  decreeing  the  complete  extirpation  of  the  Protestant 
Church  in  France,  he  made  the  plainest  avowal  to  every 
Protestant  nation  and  cabinet  of  his  intention  to  use  his 
power  as  opportunity  occurred,  even  beyond  the  French 
border,  to  injure  their  religion  and  to  serve  his  own  church. 

In  proclaiming  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
Louis  declared  that  from  henceforth  no  dissenters  from  the 
faith  were  to  be  tolerated  in  France,  but  that  all  must 
belong  to  the  king's  church.  His  idea  of  the  unity  of  the 
faith  to  be  brought  about  by  him  was  as  much  political 
as  religious,  for  to  his  mind  religious  and  political  interests 
were  inseparably  united.  His  predecessors  like  himself 
had  laboured  to  establish  the  unity  of  the  royal  power  upon 
a  solid  foundation ;  he  had  himself  thoroughly  broken  the 
power  of  the  French  parliament  as  a  political  body,  leaving 
to  it  only  that  of  a  judicial  tribunal ;  he  had  the  Catholic 
clergy  completely  in  hand ;  he  disposed  freely  of  persons  and 
property ;  of  immunities  there  was  no  question ;  his  warrants 
of  imprisonment  arid  decrees  of  banishment,  frequently  with 
no  reason  given,  struck  priest  and  layman  alike.  The 
Protestants  therefore,  with  their  consistories  and  synods, 
presented  a  sharp  contrast  and  were  an  eye- sore,  a  republi- 
can discord  in  the  great  monarchical  harmony,  however 
peaceably  and  humbly  they  might  demean  themselves. 
The  non  licet  csse  vos,  which  the  Christians  of  the  second 
and  third  centuries  had  so  often  heard  from  the  Eomans, 
was  at  bottom  the  opinion  of  the  French  Catholics  also. 
Every  system  of  ecclesiastical  or  secular  despotism  must, 
by  an  internal  law  of  its  nature,  ceaselessly  strive  to  widen 
the  sphere  of  its  power,  and  to  overthrow  remaining 
barriers.  And  Louis,  too,  was  accustomed  in  spiritual 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  807 

matters  to  find  all  things  bend  before  him  without  break- 
ing ;  he  had  been  often  assured  that  a  summons  or  a  decree 
from  him  would  suffice  in  a  single  day  to  turn  thousands  of 
heretics  into  good  Catholics.  The  revocation  of  the  edict 
was  after  all  only  the  conclusion,  long  and  anxiously  ex- 
pected by  a  portion  of  both  clergy  and  laity,  of  a  series  of 
preparatory  measures  which  had  been  commenced  in  the 
very  first  years  of  his  reign. 

It  was  the  true  despotic  instinct,  also,  that  prompted 
him  to  reject  the  plans  for  negotiation  and  reconciliation 
between  the  two  churches  suggested  by  eminent  men  like 
Leibnitz,  Bossuet,  Molanus,  Bishop  Rojas  de  Spinola,  and 
others,  and  to  condemn  them  as  a  perversion  of  principle  ; 
although  Eichelieu,  whom  he  otherwise  esteemed  so  highly, 
had  determined  upon  seeking  to  restore  unity  in  this  way, 
by  concession,  and  by  the  abolition  of  ecclesiastical  abuses. 
The  idea  of  concession  even  in  things  not  touching  the 
substance  of  dogma  was  repulsive  to  Louis.  In  his  eyes  it 
contained  a  dangerous  germ,  as  there  would  remain  room 
for  the  converted  to  suppose  that  the  authority  of  church 
and  king  had  gone  too  far  in  the  arbitrary  enforcement 
of  these  things,  and  had  therefore  erred.  Herein  he  was 
more  orthodox  than  his  court  theologian  Bossuet,  upon 
whom  otherwise  in  questions  of  doctrine  and  church  dis- 
cipline he  bestowed  implicit  confidence,  and  he  was  wholly 
in  accord  with  the  popes  who  placed  uniformity  in  church 
ritual,  at  all  events  in  the  West,  above  all  other  considera- 
tions. It  had  been  Bossuet' s  wish  to  concede  to  the  Pro- 
testants the  reception  of  the  cup  at  the  Lord's  supper. 
Louis  and  his  ministers  would  hear  of  no  such  proposals  ; 
neither  could  he  endure  that  any  of  his  subjects  should 
believe  their  religion  to  be  better  than  the  king's,  and 
should  cherish  sympathy  for  foreign  co-religionists  in  de- 
fiance of  the  antipathy  felt  for  them  by  the  king.  No  part, 
therefore,  of  their  church  life  should  be  left  to  the  converts 
which  might  warrant  their  retaining  any  religious  pecu- 
liarity. 

x  2 


308  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

The  chain  of  circumstances  which  followed  the  fatal 
22nd  of  October,  1685,  holds  together  link  by  link,  leading 
up  to  the  final  annihilation  of  the  lofty  project  of  a 
European  hegemony,  or  rather  of  an  autocratic  monarchy. 
At  the  Peace  of  Nimeguen,  1679,  the  power  of  Louis  stood  at 
its  greatest  height ;  a  military  promenade  had  put  him  in 
possession  of  Franche-Comte,  and  a  large  part  of  the  Spanish 
Netherlands,  with  sixteen  fortresses,  besides  Freiburg  in 
Breisgau  which  had  been  ceded  to  him.  Directly  afterwards 
Germany,  wanting  in  energy  or  corrupted  by  bribery,  per- 
mitted the  '  Chambres  de  Reunion '  to  carry  on  their  work ; 
Strasburg  and  Casale  were  besieged  in  1681,  Luxemburg 
seized  in  1684,  the  Palatinate  twice  desolated.  For  the 
sake  of  proving  to  the  world  that  oppression  and  persecution 
of  aliens  from  the  faith  were  part  of  his  mission,  he  offered 
troops  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy  to  assist  in  the  persecution  of 
the  Waldenses,  whom  Cromwell  and  Mazarin  had  formerly 
protected,  and  ordered  Catinat  to  organise  a  massacre  of 
these  harmless  inhabitants  of  the  Piedmontese  valleys. 
Meanwhile  his  Protestant  subjects  who  had  emigrated  and 
were  scattered  through  other  Protestant  countries,  carried 
with  them  the  news  of  the  dragonades,  rousing  fear  and 
disgust  everywhere.  Holland  and  England  were  filled  with 
wild  excitement,  whilst  Louis's  most  faithful,  devoted  ally, 
James  II.,  relying  upon  the  powerful  arm  of  his  French 
cousin,  blindly  advanced  from  one  deed  of  violence  to 
another,  and  awoke  to  the  idea  that  with  the  help  of  Louis 
he  might  imitate  the  deeds  of  Louis.  Thereupon  James's 
son-in-law,  William  of  Orange,  was  invited  to  come  to  the 
assistance  of  the  imperilled  religion  and  constitution  of 
England.  The  French  King  committed  one  of  his  most 
fatal  mistakes  ;  instead  of  throwing  his  army  upon  Holland, 
he  sent  it  into  the  Palatinate.  William  was  consequently 
able  to  take  his  troops  over  to  England,  a  North-German 
army  was  marched  into  the  places  vacated  by  them,  and  an 
enterprise  succeeded,  the  failure  of  which  would  have  caused 
the  history  of  the  world  to  take  another  direction.  James, 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  309 

determined  that  no  parliament  should  compel  him  to  re- 
nounce his  despotic  claims,  saw  himself  at  once  forsaken 
by  the  nation,  and  fled  to  France.  In  vain  Louis,  for  the 
sake  of  upholding  him  and  the  principles  that  were  at 
stake,  sent  an  army  to  Ireland ;  the  cause  of  the  two  kings 
was  lost  at  the  battle  of  the  Boyne,  and  through  the  naval 
victory  obtained  by  the  English  and  Dutch  fleets  over  the 
French  at  La  Hogue,  England  won  the  mastery  of  the  seas 
which  she  has  ever  since  retained.  Thus  recoiled  upon 
himself  the  words  which  Louis  had  uttered  in  the  intoxica- 
tion of  his  first  successes,  that  '  battles,  won  by  divine 
decree,  revealed  the  heavenly  counsels  as  to  who  should  bear 
rule  and  possess  the  land.'  His  star  was  rapidly  on  the 
wane.  When,  after  a  few  years,  the  utter  exhaustion  of 
France  obliged  him  to  seek  for  peace,  he  was  only  able  to 
purchase  it  at  Kyswick  in  1697  by  a  series  of  humiliating 
concessions  and  renunciations.  Yet  official  voices  in 
France  contrived  to  extol  even  this  peace  as  a  triumph 
obtained  by  the  king.  Germany,  divided  and  distracted, 
was  vanquished ;  Alsace  and  Strasburg  remained  in  the 
possession  of  the  French  ;  and  an  article  in  the  treaty  stipu- 
lated for  the  re-introduction  of  the  Catholic  religion  into 
the  districts  upon  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  '  We  receive 
what  we  have  earned,'  was  the  remark  of  Leibnitz  at  the 
time.  But  Louis  gained  the  credit  of  having  once  again 
proved  himself,  even  at  the  cost  of  his  own  advantage,  the 
support  and  benefactor  of  the  church. 

His  mission  had  by  this  time  become  more  than  ever  a 
political  necessity,  and  the  indispensable  means  of  main- 
taining his  power.  For  now  the  decision  of  a  question 
which  had  formed  the  end  and  aim  of  his  whole  life,  and 
entered  into  all  the  calculations  of  his  policy,  was  imminent . 
When  the  Spanish  succession  should  be  declared,  the  con- 
viction must  prevail  in  Rome  as  well  as  in  Madrid  that  the 
welfare  of  religion  and  the  aggrandisement  of  the  church 
had  been  the  supreme  law  of  his  conduct. 

Before  becoming  king.  Louis  Philippe  once  remarked 


810  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

that  men,  as  soon  as  the  crown  is  on  their  heads,  are 
blindfolded.  Louis  XIV.,  as  his  writings  prove,  was  an 
intelligent  ruler,  deliberate  and  clear-headed,  who  in  many 
things  saw  correctly.  Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  at 
critical  moments  of  his  career  he  acted  blindly.  The  greatest 
benefactor  to  France  and  to  the  king  would  have  been  one 
who,  with  the  authority  of  a  prophet  of  old,  could  have 
confronted  Louis  in  the  year  1685  and  have  warned  him 
in  some  such  terms  as  these :  '  Eevoke  not  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  !  Thou  wilt  forge  thereby  the  first  link  of  an  inter- 
minable chain  of  abominable  oppression  and  violence  ;  thou 
wilt  make  more  hypocrites  than  believers ;  thou  art  com- 
pelling them  to  desecrate  sacrilegiously  the  holy  ordinances 
of  the  church  ;  driving  thousands  of  the  most  useful  and 
conscientious  citizens,  of  the  most  industrious  subjects  and 
artisans,  out  of  the  country ;  strengthening  the  hands  of 
thine  enemies  present  and  future  ;  and  forfeiting  the  friend- 
ship of  those  princes  and  peoples  who  have  hitherto  been 
thine  allies.  Driven  by  thee  into  exile  the  men  who  were 
thy  faithful  subjects  will  gather  round  foreign  hostile 
standards  to  fight  against  thee  and  the  cause  that  thou 
representest.  Out  of  the  dragon's  teeth  of  hypocrisy, 
lying,  and  dissimulation  which  thou  art  now  sowing  broad- 
cast will  spring  up  a  faithless  and  hostile  generation  to  thy 
successors  and  the  church.  It  will  overthrow  the  throne 
which  thou  hast  thought  to  set  up  so  high ;  it  will  persecute 
and  lay  waste  the  church  which  now  presses  into  thy  hands 
the  weapons  and  implements  of  punishment  against  the 
sons  of  thy  people.' 

During  the  twenty  years  which  elapsed  between  the  day 
of  the  Kevocation  and  the  death  of  the  king,  many  of  the 
consequences  indicated  above  came  to  maturity.  Many  were 
concealed  from  Louis  or  were  disregarded.  He  moderated 
secretly  some  of  his  severest  measures  with  a  view  to  counter- 
act in  some  degree  the  mischief  brought  about  by  the 
ruin  or  flight  of  so  many  families.  But  in  their  main  points 
the  laws  remained  in  force  which  declared  the  Protestant 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  811 

religion  to  be  dead  and  extinct  in  France,  and  denied 
existence  as  citizens  to  those  who  clung  to  it.  Thus  matters 
remained  until  sixty  years  after  the  death  of  Louis. 

By  the  close  of  the  century  France  no  longer  possessed 
either  friends  or  allies.  Fear,  mistrust,  or  hatred  were  the 
sentiments  which  animated  the  neighbours  and  former 
allies  of  the  king  and  of  his  people,  when  at  length  the  long 
expected  event,  fraught  with  terrible  consequences  for 
Southern  and  Central  Europe,  came  to  pass. 

The  sickly  life  of  the  last  of  the  Spanish  Habsburgs  had 
expired,  and  his  will  named  the  grandson  of  Louis  as  his 
heir  ;  as  King  of  Spain  he  was  to  enter  into  possession  of  the 
whole  undivided  empire,  Naples  and  Sicily,  Sardinia,  Lom- 
bardy,  the  Catholic  Netherlands,  and  the  American  posses- 
sions. For  forty  years  had  Louis  looked  forward  to  the 
opening  of  the  great  question  of  the  Succession,  and  in  all 
his  dealings  with  the  house  of  Habsburg,  as  well  as  with  the 
naval  powers,  had  kept  it  carefully  before  his  eyes.  Spain 
itself,  a  feeble  and  degraded  monarchy,  had  been  treated  by 
him,  now  as  an  enemy,  now  as  a  vassal,  and  occasionally 
with  a  certain  amount  of  consideration  due  to  its  value  as  a 
future  prize.  He  had  striven  to  secure  not  the  whole,  but  a 
certain  amount  of  the  inheritance  for  France.  His  glance 
naturally  turned,  more  especially  at  first,  towards  the  Nether- 
lands, but  it  was  directed  towards  Italy  as  well.  Thrice 
already  he  had  concluded  treaties  of  partition.  First,  in 
16(38,  he  had  succeeded  in  a  marvellous  way  in  persuading 
his  opponent,  the  Emperor  Leopold,  to  enter  into  a  treaty 
of  the  kind,  and  to  suffer  his  only  weapon  to  be  wrested 
from  him  by  his  powerful  rival,  by  giving  his  assent  to  the 
invalidity  of  the  renunciation  made  by  the  Infanta,  the 
wife  of  Louis.  This  treaty,  which  for  a  while  tied  the 
hands  of  the  court  of  Vienna,  inducing  it  to  adopt  a 
tortuous  and  evasive  line  of  policy,  was  a  few  years  later 
cancelled  by  the  formation  of  a  coalition  against  Louis. 
After  the  death  of  the  Bavarian  prince  whom  Charles  II. 
had  appointed  as  his  universal  heir,  Louis  had  concluded  a 


812  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  n 

secret  treaty  with  the  naval  powers,  allotting  Spain,  with 
the  colonies  and  the  Netherlands,  to  the  emperor,  and 
Southern  Italy  to  the  king.  The  assent  of  the  emperor 
had  not  heen  obtained.  Meanwhile,  in  Spain  it  was 
recognised  that  the  partition  of  the  monarchy,  which  was 
regarded  by  all  with  abhorrence,  could  only  be  avoided  by 
summoning  a  French  prince  to  the  throne.  Pope 
Innocent  XII.,  upon  being  consulted  by  Charles,  had  given 
the  same  recommendation,  partly  out  of  preference  for  the 
Bourbons,  partly  because  it  was  thought  in  Eome  that  if 
Southern  Italy  became  a  French  dependency,  the  introduc- 
tion of  Gallican  principles  would  inevitably  follow — an  evil 
much  to  be  deprecated.  The  court  of  Vienna  caused  this 
danger  to  be  vividly  represented  to  the  pope,  but  had  itself 
so  far  contributed  towards  its  existence  that  Innocent 
recommended  the  selection  of  the  grandson  of  Louis  rather 
than  of  the  Austrian  Archduke.  If  the  monarchy  were  to 
remain  united  under  a  French  prince,  whose  government 
would  be  carried  on  by  Spanish  ministers  and  officials, 
then  in  all  probability  Spanish  views  and  institutions  would 
remain  dominant. 

Louis  made  up  his  mind  to  accept  the  will,  thus  resign- 
ing the  hopes  and  plans  which  he  had  cherished  hitherto, 
of  making  parts  of  various  Spanish  provinces  serve 
for  the  enlargement  of  France,  but  satisfied  because  a 
second  splendid  crown  would  be  acquired  for  the  house  of 
Bourbon.  Once  more  a  triumph  after  his  own  heart 
awaited  him,  when  the  Junta,  which  carried  on  the  admi- 
nistration in  Spain  during  the  interregnum,  with  the 
two  presidents  of  the  High  Councils  of  Aragon  and  Castile, 
besought  him,  '  the  most  Christian  King,'  to  assume  the 
direction  of  affairs  in  Spain,  assuring  him  that  he  would  be  as 
implicitly  obeyed  there  as  in  France.  It  was  the  last  ray  of 
sunshine  which  illuminated  the  evening  of  his  life,  darkening 
already  to  its  close.  For  now  he  was  hurried  on  into  a 
twelve  years'  war,  which,  with  the  insufficient  resources  of  a 
country  weakened  and  exhausted  by  forty  years  of  constant 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  313 

warfare,  and  without  allies — excepting  the  King  of  Bavaria 
who  was  speedily  subdued — against  the  combined  powers  of 
the  emperor,  the  two  naval  powers,  and  other  princes, 
brought  France  to  the  very  brink  of  ruin.  And  now  Louis, 
being  burdened  with  the  alliance  of  the  Spaniards  in 
their  decay,  found  himself  in  the  predicament  of  having  to 
defend  the  countries  appertaining  to  the  Spanish  crown. 
It  was  a  cruel  Nemesis  that  he,  who  in  his  first  three  wars 
had  been  the  unjust  aggressor  and  yet  had  carried  them  on 
with  a  series  of  splendid  successes  and  in  the  end  remained 
the  victor,  should  now,  in  his  fourth  war,  with  the  right 
on  his  side,  suffer  such  fearful  reverses  and  defeats,  and  in 
the  end  owe  his  deliverance  to  a  change  in  the  English 
cabinet  brought  about  by  a  caprice  of  Queen  Anne.  But 
even  now,  at  the  critical  moment  which  was  to  decide  the 
conduct  of  England,  he  allowed  himself  in  his  zeal  for  the 
church,  and  perhaps  through  female  influence  (see  p.  367), 
to  be  led,  against  the  advice  of  his  ministers  and  contrary 
to  the  terms  of  his  treaty  with  William  of  Orange,  into  the 
disastrous  mistake  of  recognising  the  son  of  James  II.  as 
the  legitimate  King  of  England.  This  he  did  at  the 
moment  when  he  was  nevertheless  most  anxious  to  avoid 
the  war  which  was  impending  upon  the  Spanish  question. 
Resentment  at  his  want  of  faith  had  the  immediate  effect 
of  uniting  the  contending  parties,  and  of  causing  England 
to  throw  her  whole  weight  upon  the  side  of  the  emperor 
and  his  son.  Even  after  the  peace,  in  the  last  six  months 
of  his  life,  Louis  again  sought  to  stir  up  a  rebellion  in 
England  and  supported  the  Pretender.  And  yet  the  repeated 
blows  which  had  befallen  him  in  consequence  of  the  step 
he  had  taken,  had  brought  him  so  low  that  he  even  offered 
to  pay  a  million  monthly  to  his  enemies,  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  dethroning  his  grandson. 

The  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession  was  the  first  since 
the  Eeformation  which  had  nothing  to  do  with  religious 
interests  and  principles  but  was  purely  political  and  proceeded 
from  the  jealousy  of  states  and  the  impatience  of  oppressive 


314  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

despotism.  But  in  the  personal  judgment  of  Louis  the 
consideration  of  the  advantage  of  his  church  still  had  full 
weight,  and,  so  far  as  was  possible  to  him  with  very  reduced 
power,  he  threw  it  into  the  scale  in  every  international 
question. 

History  has  pronounced  its  verdict  upon  Louis  XIV.  It 
has  denied  him  the  title  of  *  Great,'  and  thus  has  not 
ranked  him  with  Alexander,  or  Charles  the  Great,  or 
Frederick  II.  of  Prussia.  Keal  genius  and  the  eagle  eye  of 
the  born  commander,  such  as  Napoleon  I.  possessed, 
were  denied  to  him.  The  educated  portion  of  his  people 
rightly  speak  of  him  as  le  grand  monarque,  but  they  only  ; 
for  in  the  remembrance  of  the  masses  his  name  no  longer 
holds  a  place  either  for  praise  or  blame  ;  according  to  the 
testimony  of  Count  Gobineau  scarcely  a  peasant  could  be 
found  anywhere  in  France  who  cherished  his  memory. 
Nevertheless  a  monarch,  whose  influence  upon  the  course 
of  the  world's  history  was  so  powerful  that  an  epoch  in  the 
progress  of  civilisation  has  been  called  'the  age  of  Louis  XIV.,' 
deserves  to  be  spoken  of  as  '  the  great  monarch.'  He 
added  a  splendour  and  a  charm  to  royalty — he  may  be  said 
to  have  enriched  the  meaning  of  it.  He  was  truly  the  first 
monarch  since  the  times  of  the  Eomans  whose  life,  in  its 
nobler  features,  afforded  a  public  example  for  the  imitation 
of  kings.  It  testified  to  the  much-neglected  truth  that  to 
govern  requires  persevering  labour — that,  by  the  highest 
law  of  the  modern  state,  a  king  who  would  be  worthy  of 
the  name  must  apply  himself  energetically  to  all  depart- 
ments of  human  enterprise,  to  science,  to  art,  to  education, 
as  much  as  to  politics  and  the  material  benefit  of  his  people. 
In  thus  combining  the  qualities  of  a  great  administrator 
with  those  of  a  Maecenas,  Louis  had  no  equal  either  on 
his  own  or  any  other  throne.  By  extending  the  authority 
of  the  crown,  and  by  the  exercise  of  the  autocratic 
principle  of  reserving  every  point  for  personal  decision,  he 
rendered  the  burden  so  excessive  that  his  own  successors, 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  315 

at  best  but   moderately  endowed  as  to  powers  of  mind, 
inevitably  succumbed  under  it.     Even  he,  in  his  prime,  was 
not  equal  to  the  self-imposed  task,  for  it   surpassed  the 
average  measure  of  human  ability.     By  degrees  the  burden 
became  too  heavy  for  him.     We  see  him  for  the  last  twenty- 
five  years  of  his  life,  ill  and  weary,  averse  to  business,  yet, 
in  the  midst  of  disappointments  and  shipwrecked  hopes,  still 
toiling  on  in  spite  of  weariness  and  disgust,  such  as  he 
would  have  deemed  impossible  in  his  younger  days.     At  the 
same  time  he  experienced  the  aching  void  of  a  life  sur- 
rounded by  courtiers  whose  only  studies  were  questions  of 
etiquette  and  genealogy,  and  whose  highest  ambition  was 
to  carry  the  king's  candle  when  he  went  to  bed,  or  to  hand 
him  his  night-shirt.     The  principle  that  the  absence  of  all 
restraints  is  a  continual  danger  to  any  human  being  and  in 
the  long  run  injurious  to  the  moral  condition  of  the  soul, 
was  by  no  means  taken  for  granted  in  those  days,  and  least 
of  all  was  it  to  be  looked  for  in  a  king  into  whose  mind  the 
contrary  had  been  instilled  by  the  precepts,  example,  and 
encouragement  of  the  authority  that  he  deemed  the  highest. 
Had  he  not  governed  absolutely  he  could  not  have  kept  the 
oath  taken  by  him  at  his  coronation.     It  is  not  therefore 
surprising  if,  according  to  Fenelon's  description,  he  showed 
himself  in  later  life  hard,  peremptory,  and  unsympathetic, 
always  inclined  to  avoid  facing  the  truth,  preferring  to  take 
an  optimist  view  of  things  and  to  flatter  himself  that  they 
were  as  he  wished  them  to  be.     In  him  the  king  ended  by 
stifling  the  man  originally  capable  of  better  things.     Yet  it 
must  not  be  overlooked  that  his  faults  were  only  the  out- 
growth of  royalty  in  the  shape  that  the  nation  demanded, 
and  for  the  sake  of  which  it   crippled   itself  by  its  own 
feverish  efforts.     There  was,  it  seemed,  a  general  conspiracy 
to  spoil  the  king  by  every  form  of  flattery ;  to  lead  him 
astray  by  false  teaching  or  half-truths  and  by  the  habitual 
concealment  of  facts.     With  but  rare  exceptions,  every  one 
with  whom  the  monarch  came  in  contact,  instructors  and 
guardians,  poets  and  orators,  historians  and  theologians, 


316  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

were  silent  upon  the  immorality  of  his  private  life.  As  he 
once  said  of  himself,  no  one  was  so  open  to  flattery  as  he ; 
and  this  all  knew  and  took  into  account. 

Death  robbed  him  of  his  children,  grand-children,  and 
great  grand-children  ;  laid  desolate  his  magnificent  court, 
which  had  revelled  in  luxury  and  pleasure,  and  spared  to 
him  but  one  being  whom  he  loved  and  trusted  ;  he  stood 
erect  and  solitary  like  an  isolated  tower  in  the  midst  of 
ruins.  Vanquished,  richer  in  shipwrecked  hopes  and 
disappointed  plans  than  territories  acquired  or  power  in- 
creased, buffeted  by  external  as  well  as  internal  blows  of 
fortune,  shaken  in  the  belief  in  his  own  infallibility  which 
he  had  cherished  for  years,  he  still  remained  the  unflinch- 
ing, dignified,  unapproachable  king  who  never  betrayed  a 
sign  of  weakness.  Tortured  by  physical  and  moral  suffering 
—for  he  was  aware  of  the  condition  to  which  he  had 
reduced  his  people — he  sought  and  found  comfort  and 
peace  in  the  thought  that  he  was  punished  here  in  order 
that  he  might  more  surely  find  grace  hereafter.  This  he 
once  said,  weeping,  to  Marshal  Villars.  Madame  de 
Maintenon  was  on  other  occasions  the  sole  witness  of  his 
frequent  tears.  The  natural  dignity  and  majesty,  unaffected 
fortitude,  and  pious  resignation,  with  which  he  prepared 
for  death,  and  the  calm  resolution  with  which  he  made 
the  necessary  arrangements,  have  won  the  respect  and 
admiration  of  men  who  have  otherwise  judged  him 
severely.  The  Emperor  Hadrian  said  that  an  emperor 
must  die  erect  ;  Louis  died  standing  upon  the  pedestal  of 
majesty.  It  belonged  to  his  vocation  to  show  the  world 
even  in  death  the  pattern  of  the  real  king.  All  the  more 
undignified  seemed  the  behaviour  of  the  court :  the  expiring 
monarch  was  forsaken  of  all  ;  hired  hands  closed  his  eyes  ; 
hirelings  watched  by  the  corpse.  The  nation,  whose  enthu- 
siasm for  him  had  long  since  been  quenched  in  unutterable 
misery,  breathed  more  freely  as  though  a  weight  had  been 
lifted  from  its  heart. 


xr  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  317 

Now  if  it  be  asked  what  effect  has  been  produced  by 
Louis  upon  posterity,  and  what  was  his  share  of  responsi- 
bility in  the  Revolution  which  happened  seventy- four  years 
after  his  death,  and  in  the  course  which  it  took,  it  might 
perhaps  be  said  that  Spain  has  better  cause  to  honour  and 
exalt  the  memory  of  Louis  than  France.  He  conferred  a 
new  dynasty  upon  Spain  by  giving  to  it  his  grandson,  and 
thus  drew  that  country  into  close  and  friendly  connection 
with  France,  and  gave  that  kingdom  the  opportunity  of 
recovery  from  the  abyss  of  misery  and  degradation  into 
which  it  had  been  plunged  by  the  policy  of  Philip  II.  and  his 
successors.  The  Bourbons,  Ferdinand  VI.  and  Charles  III., 
introduced  better  principles  of  administration,  regulated 
the  public  finance  which  the  Habsburgs  had  left  in  complete 
confusion,  gave  a  lasting  peace  to  the  country  after  centuries 
of  unprofitable  and  exhausting  warfare,  opened  channels  of 
communication  by  which  fresh  knowledge  and  wider  views 
might  be  imported  into  the  Peninsula  from  beyond  the 
Pyrenees,  and  succeeded  at  last  in  welding  together  Aragon, 
Catalonia,  and  Valencia  with  Castile  into  one  strong  and 
united  kingdom. 

With  regard  to  France  itself,  let  us  look  first  at  the 
brighter  side  of  Louis's  administration.  Without  attempt- 
ing to  decide  how  much  was  due  to  Colbert  and  how  much 
personally  to  Louis,  the  first  part  of  his  reign  was  in  any 
case  more  fruitful  of  good  and  more  brilliant  than  any 
period  through  which  France  had  hitherto  passed.  A 
strong  naval  power  was  rapidly  created,  the  trade  of  the 
country  aroused  and  promoted,  a  network  of  highways  and 
canals  formed,  and  manufacturing  companies  called  into 
existence  under  the  patronage  of  government.  The  foun- 
dation of  the  state  of  Louisiana  strengthened  the  position 
of  France  in  North  America,  already  rendered  important 
by  the  possession  of  Canada,  and  shut  in  the  English  plan- 
tations upon  three  sides.  The  code  of  civil  and  criminal 
law,  although  still  disfigured  by  barbarous  harshness  and 
cruel  regulations,  was  a  step  in  advance  which  at  the  time 


318  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

was  much  admired  and  elsewhere  imitated.  Many  of 
Louis's  enactments,  although  altered  in  form,  have  in  spirit 
been  perpetuated,  and  are  still  in  force  in  spite  of  the  Kevo- 
lution.  The  skill  and  circumspection  used  by  him  in  dis- 
covering and  laying  hold  of  every  expedient  for  prosecuting 
his  undertakings,  and  directing  every  lever  to  the  right  place, 
are  worthy  of  admiration.  He  possessed,  besides,  the  attrac- 
tive talent  of  enhancing  by  well-chosen  words  the  value  of 
his  gifts  and  favours. 

But  in  contrast  with  these  bright  pages  there  are  as 
regards  France  many  dark  leaves  in  the  book  of  fate. 
Louis,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  regretted  his  extrava- 
gant outlay  upon  buildings,  as  well  as  upon  his  unjust  wars. 
That  in  autocratic  wilfulness  be  should  have  squandered 
the  national  wealth  which  he  had  in  the  first  instance 
helped  to  amass,  and  that  he  should  now  leave  a  burden  of 
debt  to  his  successors  and  an  impoverished  country,  grieved 
him  indeed ;  yet  he  never  thought  of  compensating  even 
private  individuals  for  his  private  debts,  and  for  the 
restitution  owing  to  the  country  he  relied  upon  the  mercy 
of  God.  The  spoliation  of  his  Protestant  subjects,  whose 
wealth  had  flowed  into  his  treasury,  he  seems  to  have  con- 
sidered even  on  his  deathbed  as  perfectly  justified  by  the 
piety  of  the  motive. 

Before  the  outbreak  of  the  last  war,  all  classes  in  France 
with  the  exception  of  the  clergy  were  exhausted  and  im- 
poverished by  various  arts  of  extortion  which  financial 
acuteness  alone  could  contrive  and  practise.  Fenelon 
declared  that  every  one  must  now  live  on  the  king's 
bounty,  since  the  wealth  of  the  country  had  utterly  dis- 
appeared. Such  a  condition  of  things  could  only  be  pos- 
sible where  the  revenues  of  the  country  and  of  the  ruler  were 
not  separate.  Louis  was  in  his  own  opinion  the  sole  pro- 
prietor of  all  France,  and  justified  in  turning  the  screw  of 
taxation  to  any  amount,  and  he  had  gradually  increased 
the  number  of  taxes  and  dues  payable  to  the  state  by 
the  towns  to  the  number  of  10,000.  With  a  debt  of 


XT  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  319 

2,000,000,000  the  population  had  decreased  by  several 
millions,  and  in  the  year  1700  was  reduced  to 
19,000,000.  The  remnants  of  the  army  had  degenerated 
into  robber  bands.  Famine  followed  upon  famine.  Des- 
potism had  found  a  limit  in  the  failure  of  funds,  and  Louis, 
like  other  tyrants,  was  fated  to  learn  by  experience  that 
even  despotism  might  be  powerless  to  carry  out  real 
reforms  or  to  reorganise  a  kingdom  in  decay  ;  that  reforms, 
in  fact,  are  only  possible  with  the  help  of  vigorous  institu- 
tions and  energetic  men.  But  France  possessed  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other.  Out  of  consideration,  besides,  for  the 
aged  king,  and  to  spare  him  additional  sorrow,  much  was 
kept  secret.  Of  his  later  ministers,  at  best  but  indifferent 
men  of  business,  and  by  no  means  equal  to  Lionne,  Colbert, 
or  Louvois,  none  was  capable  of  taking  a  comprehensive  view 
of  affairs ;  it  was  felt  more  and  more  that  the  pilot  was 
wanting  in  the  ship  of  the  state.  The  system  of  centralisa- 
tion, embracing  every  act  and  enterprise  of  social  life,  had 
accustomed  and  indeed  compelled  every  one  to  expect 
and  demand  everything  from  the  government ;  all  spirit  of 
enterprise  and  self-reliance  had  been  crushed,  and  the 
government  itself  stood  helpless  and  powerless  before  the 
magnitude  of  the  evil. 

The  nobles,  ruined  by  the  extravagant  outlay  which 
Louis  exacted  from  them  at  Versailles,  had  been  reduced  to 
the  dependent  position  of  the  king's  pensioners,  and  of 
mere  servants  in  the  palace  ;  yet  they  retained  numerous 
privileges,  irritating  and  burdensome  to  the  people,  which 
at  a  later  time  were  the  cause  of  their  ruin. 

To  the  French  Church,  which  the  king  had  so  highly 
esteemed  and  so  carefully  cherished,  governing  and  adminis- 
tering her  affairs  with  the  best  intentions,  he  bequeathed 
as  a  legacy  that  apple  of  discord,  the  bull  Unigenitus 
and  the  coercive  means  for  its  enforcement.  By  this 
the  very  vitals  of  the  Gallican  Church  were  poisoned ; 
a  lasting  breach  made  between  the  clergy  and  laity; 
endless  conflict  stirred  up  between  the  bishops  and  par- 


820  THE  POLICY   OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

liaments,  and  between  the  latter  and  the  cabinet ;  cor- 
ruption and  the  germs  of  dissolution  introduced  into  those 
ecclesiastical  institutions  which  had  been  heretofore  an 
ornament  to  the  church.  The  system  of  coercion  and 
repression  exercised  henceforth  by  and  over  the  clergy, 
estranged  them  more  and  more  from  serious  studies,  caus- 
ing them  to  shun  knowledge,  and  reducing  them  to  a  state  of 
intellectual  impotence  which  rendered  them  utterly  incapable 
of  entering  the  lists  in  the  literary  contests  provoked  by 
the  powerful  and  aggressive  adversaries  of  religion  which 
arose  in  the  secular  world. 

The  parliaments  had  been  embittered  by  the  insult  lately 
put  upon  them  by  the  king  in  forcing  upon  them  the  legi- 
timisation  of  his  bastard  children,  They  were  ambitious  at 
the  same  time  to  raise  themselves  out  of  insignificance.  A 
welcome  opportunity  presented  itself  in  the  terms  of 
Louis's  will,  which  they  hastened  to  cancel  immediately 
after  his  death.  The  king  had  reserved  for  his  nephew  the 
subordinate  position  of  a  member  in  the  council  of  regency ; 
the  parliament  of  Paris  proclaimed  him  sole  regent  with 
unlimited  powers. 

The  unhealthy  condition  of  the  body  politic  was  aggra- 
vated by  the  superabundance  of  officials.  Louis,  being  in 
pressing  need  of  money,  created  a  number  of  offices  and 
posts,  for  the  most  part  superfluous,  with  the  intention  of 
selling  them  afresh  upon  each  succeeding  vacancy.  The 
system  was  extended  even  into  the  villages,  where  the 
municipal  posts,  which  had  been  elective  hitherto,  were 
henceforth  put  up  for  sale,  thus  stifling  any  impulse  of  self- 
government  or  public  spirit  which  yet  remained  amongst  the 
people.  The  traffic  in  these  posts  corresponded  to  the  sale 
of  public  offices.  The  sale  of  patents  of  nobility,  introduced 
at  the  same  time,  was  profitable  for  the  moment,  but 
diminished  the  number  of  tax-payers,  and  increased  the 
seekers  for  office  and  the  crowds  of  servile  flatterers,  who, 
encumbering  the  complicated  machinery  of  the  adminis- 
tration, made  the  task  of  controlling,  and  directing  it 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  821 

impossible.     It  is  a  proof  of  national  vigour  that  France  did 
not  altogether  sink  into  the  condition  of  an  Oriental  state. 

The  refinement  of  manners,  the  elegant  adornment  of 
life,  and  the  aristocratic  polish  which  prevailed  at  Louis's 
court,  have  been  frequently  praised ;  a  beneficent  influence, 
it  is  supposed,  spread  from  thence  throughout  the  nation, 
displaying  itself  in  gentler  habits  and  a  greater  regard  for 
the  comforts  of  life.  The  truth  of  this  supposition  is  some- 
what impugned  by  the  fact — of  which  there  can  be  no  doubt 
since  the  appearance  of  recent  publications,  combined  with 
the  revelations  of  Saint- Simon  and  the  letters  of  the 
Duchess  of  Orleans  and  Madame  de  Maintenon — that  be- 
neath the  outward  show  of  etiquette  the  court  was  a  hotbed 
of  every  vice.  In  a  treatise  of  Fenelon's  of  the  year  1714 
there  is  the  following  passage  :  '  The  present  habits  of  the 
nation  inspire  every  one  with  the  strongest  temptation  to 
attach  himself  to  the  holders  of  power  by  every  kind  of  base 
and  cowardly  action,  and  even  by  deeds  of  treachery  and 
shame.'  The  state  of  things  at  court  was  more  demoralising 
and  injurious  to  the  middle  classes  in  France  than  the  cor- 
ruption which  prevailed  at  the  same  time  at  the  court  of 
Charles  II.  in  London  was  to  English  people,  because  the 
latter  for  the  most  part  concerned  themselves  little  about 
the  court,  whereas  in  France  the  worship  for  royalty  caused 
everything  that  proceeded  from  the  court  and  from  the 
vicinity  of  the  great  king  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  pattern 
worthy  of  imitation. 

In  this  realm  of  all-powerful  despotism  people  became  | 
accustomed  to  expect  nothing  from  equity  or  from  perse- 
vering industry,  but  everything  from  favour  and  intrigue. 
Noblemen  like  the  Count  of  Grignan,  Madame  de  Sevigne's 
son-in-law,  had  no  scruple  in  sending  their  wives  to  court 
to  petition  for  presents  in  money  or  a  pension  from  the 
king.  Even  hypocrisy  had  become  a  fashionable  means  of 
advancement,  ever  since  Louis — for  the  first  time  in  1684 
—had  let  it  be  known  that  his  favour  was  proportioned 
to  participation  in  the  observances  of  religion.  All  the 

Y 


822  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  XI 

more  rapid  and  complete  was  the  reaction  which  took  place 
under  the  Kegency. 

The  question  before  referred  to,  as  to  whether  Louis  XIV. 
is  responsible  for  the  Eevolution  and  for  the  overthrow  of 
the  monarchy,  would  accordingly  be  more  correctly  re- 
placed by  this  one  :  Was  it  still  possible  for  the  rulers  who 
followed  him  to  avert  the  Eevolution  ?  In  this  form  it 
must  at  once  be  answered  in  the  affirmative.  It  would 
have  been  possible,  and  not  even  very  difficult,  supposing 
that  instead  of  his  nephew,  grandson,  and  Louis  XVI.,  three 
capable  and  judicious  monarch s  had  successively  held  the 
reins  of  government.  This,  indeed,  would  have  been  a 
phenomenon  such  as  very  rarely  occurs  in  the  history  of 
dynasties.  And  Louis  was  not  free  from  blame  for  the 
errors  and  vices  of  his  nephew,  whom  he  had  brought  up 
in  enforced  idleness  and  forced  into  a  distasteful  marriage. 

We  may  in  conclusion  examine  into  the  testimony  of 
two  men  who,  differing  in  nationality,  in  condition,  and 
sentiment,  yet  both  ranking  amongst  the  greatest  intel- 
lects of  the  century,  exercised  the  sharpest  criticism  over 
Louis's  actions,  and  upon  the  whole  condemned  his  policy. 
The  first  of  these  is  Leibnitz,  the  faithful  but  unheeded 
Eckart  of  the  Germans,  who  with  such  quick  foresight  and 
warm  eloquence  called  upon  his  countrymen  to  rise  in  arms 
and  make  common  cause  against  the  Western  foe.  His 
opinion  of  the  king,  expressed  in  1698,  was  as  follows : 
'  This  great  prince  is  himself  the  greatest  wonder  of  our 
age.  Posterity  will  envy  us  as  his  contemporaries.  I  am 
not  thinking  of  his  achievements  in  politics  and  in  war, 
but  of  what  he  has  clone  for  learning,  which  would  in  itself 
suffice  to  immortalise  him.  I  need  not  describe  him 
further,  he  is  too  unique  and  too  well  known.  Good  for- 
tune and  merit  are  combined  in  him  in  the  most  astonishing 
way.  Having  been  victorious  everywhere,  and  having  won 
peace  and  prosperity  for  his  own  country,  not  only  has  he 
nothing  to  fear,  but  he  is  in  a  position  to  benefit  all  man- 
kind. His  good  intentions  equal  his  power,  and  philan- 


xi  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  323 

thropy,  to  say  nothing  of  the  love  of  fame,  leads  him  to 
care  for  the  alleviation  of  human  sorrow  down  to  the  small- 
est detail.  This  is  as  glorious  as  his  military  conquests.' 
Leibnitz  then  expresses  the  further  wish  that  Heaven  may 
continue  to  favour  Louis  and  to  allow  Europe  long  to  remain 
in  enjoyment  of  the  happy  peace  with  which  he  has  crowned 
his  wonderful  undertakings.  The  German  certainly  knew 
little  of  the  internal  condition  of  France,  or  he  could  not 
have  spoken  in  1698  of  the  prosperity  created  by  the  king. 
But  we  recognise  the  impression  which  the  king's  perso- 
nality produced,  even  on  people  who  had  had  to  endure 
the  worst  from  him. 

The  second  witness  is  the  Due  de  Saint- Simon.  Over 
and  above  their  historical  value,  his  memoirs  are  well 
known  as  the  best  and  most  trustworthy  authority  for  the 
personal  history  of  Louis  and  of  his  court,  as  well  as  of  the 
most  notable  men  and  women  around  him.  He  is  unri- 
valled in  his  delineations  of  character  and  descriptions 
of  court  life.  The  French,  not  incorrectly,  style  him  the 
Tacitus  of  their  literature.  He  is  not  free  from  errors,  from 
fanciful  exaggerations,  from  conjectures  which  he  states  as 
facts,  and  from  class  prejudices ;  hatred  and  gossip  divert 
his  pen  into  many  unjust  statements.  Since  his  work 
became  known  it  has  contributed,  not  less  than  Voltaire's 
well-known  work,  towards  the  generally  unfavourable 
opinion  which  has  been  formed  of  Louis  throughout  Europe. 
Within  the  last  two  years,  however,  a  previously  unpub- 
lished work  of  Saint- Simon's  has  appeared — a  comparison 
between  Henry  IV.  and  Louis  XIII.  and  XIV.  In  it  he 
praises  the  goodness  and  piety  of  Louis  XIV.,  his  un- 
feigned love  of  justice  and  truth,  his  constancy  and 
courage ;  he  admires  the  genuine  and  simple  magnanimity, 
the  humble  yet  dignified  resignation,  with  which  Louis  to 
the  very  end  met  the  hard  blows  of  misfortune  in  his  latter 
years  and  the  gradual  approach  of  death,  and  he  lays  the 
blame  of  the  king's  misdoings  upon  Madame  de  Mainte- 
non  and  the  bastard  Duke  of  Maine. 

Y  2 


824  THE  POLICY  OF  LOUIS  XIV  xi 

The  people  of  Germany  will  never  forget  that  the  rich 
classical  literature  fostered,  and  partly  called  into  existence, 
under  the  shadow  of  Louis's  throne,  furnished  then-  fathers 
with  an  indispensable  source  of  culture  during  a  period  of 
literary  destitution  in  their  own  country.  They  followed  a 
wise  inspiration  when  they  entered  this  school,  and  learnt 
to  emulate  the  French  and  to  appropriate  their  versatility  of 
form,  clearness  of  style,  and  purity  of  language.  The  treat- 
ment which  Germany  suffered  at  the  hands  of  Louis,  and 
the  wasting  of  the  German  provinces,  should  not  hinder 
us  from  recognising  the  bright  side  of  his  character  and 
actions,  and  from  taking  into  account  extenuating  circum- 
stances for  many  of  his  misdeeds.  The  year  1870  has  in 
no  slight  degree  made  the  practice  of  this  duty  easier. 


825 


XII 

TEE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  OF  FRENCH 
HISTORY 

LONG  ago  it  was  observed  that  according  to  the  testimony  of 
history,  women — born  in  France  or  transplanted  thither — 
have,  in  a  certain  sense,  succeeded  in  cancelling  the  effects 
of  the  Salic  Law.  In  no  other  country  have  women  inter- 
fered so  extensively  or  so  effectually  with  politics  as  in 
France.  This  is  not  surprising  if  we  accept  as  true  the 
estimate  which  Madame  Emile  de  Girardin,  the  clever 
authoress  of  '  Letters  from  Paris  '  (1844),  gives  of  her  sex. 
Ambition,  she  says,  is  the  very  life  of  the  women  of  France ; 
to  possess  weight  and  influence  is  the  object  of  their  dreams. 
How  could  they  avoid  meddling  with  public  affairs,  and 
even  aspiring  to  the  direction  of  them,  when  in  France  it  is 
the  prerogative  of  the  women,  conceded  to  them  by  the  men, 
to  govern  in  the  family  and  in  society  ?  When  Buonaparte 
came  to  Paris,  in  1795,  he  remarked  that  there,  and  there 
only,  did  women  deserve  to  stand  at  the  helm ;  the  men 
thought  of  nothing  but  of  them ;  lived  by  and  for  them ;  a 
woman  must  spend  six  months  in  Paris  to  know  her  rights 
and  how  to  govern.  That,  moreover,  was  immediately  after 
the  Eeign  of  Terror,  when  the  court,  in  which,  up  to  that 
time  more  than  elsewhere,  women  had  displayed  their  power 
of  taking  the  lead,  had  been  overthrown  and  dispersed,  and 
had  fled  to  foreign  lands.  French  women  understood  better 
than  others  how  to  wield  the  weapons,  whether  good  or 
bad,  peculiar  to  their  sex;  and  the  ambition  which  can 
only  be  satisfied  with  real  power,  as  contrasted  with  flat- 
tery and  homage,  was  more  frequently  apparent  amongst 
them. 


826  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  x  I 

The  series  of  queens  who,  as  widows  or  regents,  held 
the  reins  of  government,  commences  with  the  mother  of 
Louis  IX.  Blanche  of  Castile,  with  masculine  energy, 
managed  to  carry  to  a  successful  issue  a  seven  years' 
struggle  with  the  great  vassals  of  the  kingdom.  Her 
memory,  however,  is  tarnished  by  the  part  she  took  in  the 
war  against  the  Albigenses,  and  in  establishing  the  Inqui- 
sition in  France. 

In  the  most  distracted  and  comfortless  period  of  French 
history,  when  the  kingdom  appeared  to  be  on  the  brink 
of  ruin,  and,  under  the  imbecile  Charles  VI.,  was  torn  by 
the  dissensions  of  the  princes  and  nobles,  two  female  figures 
rise  before  us  in  as  strong  contrast  with  each  other  as  light 
with  darkness.  One  of  these,  the  wife  of  the  king,  Isabella 
of  Bavaria,  is  a  shameless,  voluptuous,  mischievous  woman, 
who  attempted  to  rob  her  own  son  of  the  throne  that  was 
his  by  right,  and  to  transfer  her  crown,  with  the  hand  of 
her  daughter,  to  the  King  of  England.  The  other  is  a 
maiden  of  the  people,  pure  in  conduct,  endowed  with  a 
heroic,  vision-nurtured  confidence  in  God,  who  rekindled 
the  courage  of  her  desponding  countrymen,  and  prepared 
the  downfall  of  the  foreign  government. 

With  the  death  of  Louis  XI.  the  political  influence  of 
women  begins  to  increase  in  France,  amounting  repeatedly 
to  complete  ascendency ;  indeed  the  interval  between  1483 
and  1590,  exclusive  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XII.,  may  be  de- 
scribed as  a  period  during  which  the  government  was  in  the 
hands  of  women  and  favourites,  the  kings  were  phantoms, 
either  led  by  their  cleverer  wives,  or  misused  and  preyed 
upon  by  their  mistresses  and  the  men  whom  they  made 
their  favourites.  During  the  minority  of  Charles  VIII. 
the  government  was  carried  on  by  his  elder  sister,  Anne 
of  Beaujeu,  herself  but  twenty-two  years  of  age.  She 
apparently  inherited  the  political  talents  of  her  father, 
Louis  XL,  and,  although  unsupported  by  any  legal  right 
or  position,  succeeded  by  the  wisdom  and  vigour  of  her 
administration  in  making  her  authority  recognised. 


xii  OF  FKENCH  HISTOKY  327 

Widely  different  was  the  behaviour  of  Louise  of  Savoy, 
the  mother  of  Francis  L,  whom  he  followed  blindfold  to 
his  own  detriment  and  still  more  to  that  of  France.  The 
influence  of  this  avaricious,  extravagant,  and  vindictive 
woman — it  is  impossible  to  forget  the  Constable  of  Bourbon 
—was  continually  adverse  to  the  interests  of  the  nation,  and, 
besides  her,  the  king's  favourites,  the  Countess  Chateau- 
briand and  the  Duchess  of  Etampes,  helped  to  aggravate 
the  evil.  '  The  women,'  says  Tavannes,  '  make  everything, 
even  the  generals.'  He  might  have  added,  '  even  the 
bishops,'  after  the  signing  of  the  concordat,  and  even  before 
that. 

Henry  II.,  the  son  and  successor  of  Francis,  continued 
up  to  the  day  of  his  death  in  the  toils  of  a  widow  of  forty- 
eight,  Diana  of  Poitiers,  whom  he  had  created  Duchess  of 
Valentinois.  He  allowed  her  free  interference  in  public 
affairs,  as  well  as  the  disposal  of  the  public  treasure,  and  of 
all  posts,  ecclesiastical  and  secular,  and  she  surrounded 
herself  with  all  the  attributes  of  power.  She  it  was  who 
levelled  the  path  by  which  the  Lothringian  house  of 
Guise  attained  to  power,  and  she  was  equally  successful 
in  her  efforts  to  bring  Protestants  to  the  stake. 

With  Catherine  de  Medici  Italian  elements  of  the  basest 
description  were  imported  into  the  court  of  France.  Cathe- 
rine possessed  the  political  instincts  of  the  Italians  of  her 
day ;  she  was  a  pupil  of  the  school  of  Machiavelli,  in  which 
all  her  family  had  been  trained.  The  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  this  policy  was  that  everything  is  allowable  for  the 
sake  of  power.  Several  of  her  countrymen  of  kindred  views 
followed  her  to  Paris  and  were  raised  by  her  to  the  highest 
posts.  Such  a  one  was  Birago,  who,  in  reward  for  the 
active  part  he  played  in  the  massacre  of  1572,  was  advanced 
to  the  dignities  of  chancellor  and  cardinal.  Addicted  to 
astrology  and  to  every  kind  of  pagan  superstition,  she  trod 
in  the  path  of  her  father-in-law  Francis,  filling  the  court 
with  a  bevy  of  women  versed  in  the  arts  of  coquetry,  who 
served  her  as  tools  in  maintaining  her  power.  It  is  well 


828  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN 


XII 


known  that  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  was  planned 
and  executed  chiefly  through  her  agency. 

Not  less  baleful  for  France  was  the  influence  of  another 
daughter  of  the  Tuscan  house  of  the  Medici,  Mary,  the  wife 
of  Henry  IV.  and  mother  of  Louis  XIII.  A  spendthrift,  the 
slave  of  her  passions,  continually  occupied  with  herself  and 
her  adornment,  suspicious,  yet  singularly  open  to  the  sug- 
gestions of  flattery,  the  period  of  her  regency  marks  an 
epoch  of  misfortune  to  France.  Herself  the  daughter  of 
an  Austrian  Archduchess,  she  reversed  the  policy  of  her 
husband,  and  sought  to  reduce  France  into  dependence  upon 
Spain.  No  sooner  had  her  son  assumed  the  government 
than  she  endeavoured  to  stir  up  enemies  against  him  every- 
where ;  incited  his  own  brother  and  sister-in-law  to  resist- 
ance, and  embittered  his  whole  life.  Violent  and  inconsis- 
tent in  hatred,  fickle  and  capricious  in  her  attachments,  she 
did  all  in  her  power  to  procure  the  overthrow  of  Eichelieu, 
although  she  had  herself  caused  his  elevation  and  intro- 
duced him  into  the  cabinet.  She  lent  herself  to  various 
conspiracies,  and  died  at  last  in  a  foreign  land  unreconciled 
with  her  son,  the  victim  of  her  own  folly. 

France  was  yet  again  destined  to  experience  the  full 
meaning  of  female  government  carried  on  in  the  name  of 
an  absolute  royalty,  and  to  tide  through  the  dangers  and 
catastrophes  entailed  by  female  interference  in  politics.  In 
appointing  Mazarin  as  prime  minister  during  the  minority 
of  her  son,  the  Queen  Eegent  Anne  of  Austria  was  not  only 
following  the  impulse  of  her  heart,  for  he  had  won  her  love, 
but  the  calculations  of  policy,  for  she  counted  on  his  con- 
tinuing the  policy  of  Eichelieu,  and  reckoned  that  as  he 
was  unshackled  by  part}7  ties,  he  would  depend  upon  her, 
would  serve  her  only,  and  would  relieve  her  of  the  burden 
of  public  affairs,  whilst  leaving  her  the  consciousness  of  un- 
limited power.  The  foreign  favourite  was  both  detested  and 
envied,  as  Eichelieu  had  been,  but  less  feared.  Four  distinct 
parties  formed  themselves  against  him,  and  three  times 
plunged  the  country  into  civil  war ;  drew  down  upon  it  a 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  329 

Spanish  invasion ;  and  caused  a  massacre  in  the  Hotel  de 
Ville  in  Paris,  upon  which  occasion  one  hundred  and  fifty 
corpses  were  thrown  into  the  Seine.  A  state  of  anarchy 
ensued,  produced  by  the  competition  of  private  ambition 
with  the  interests  of  public  bodies.  For  men  like  Eetz  and 
Conde  the  only  considerations  were  the  possession  of  place 
and  power.  The  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  parliament  to 
assume  a  position  of  permanent  mediation  between  the 
monarchy  and  the  nation,  and  to  place  legal  barriers  to  the 
despotism  of  the  crown,  was  of  greater  national  importance. 

Mazarin  said  that  of  the  women  who  interfered  there 
were  three  competent  to  govern  the  kingdom  or  to  over- 
throw it.  Yet  Mazarin  well  knew  how  to  play  off  women 
against  each  other,  to  disarm  them  or  to  win  them  by 
money  or  places  at  court.  Anarchy  was  the  result  in  the 
long  run,  and  high  treason,  in  the  shape  of  a  compact  with 
Spain,  the  hereditary  foe  of  France.  Mazarin  shed  no 
blood,  but  the  resources  of  his  cunning  and  his  skill  in  the 
art  of  bribery  were  unlimited,  and  absolute  monarchy  came 
forth  established  and  strengthened  from  the  assaults  made 
upon  it. 

The  education  of  Louis  had  been  much  neglected  by 
the  fault  of  his  mother  and  of  Cardinal  Mazarin.  He  had 
learnt  nothing  profitable.  Neither  the  habit  of  reading, 
nor  the  love  for  any  study,  had  been  instilled  into  him. 
His  ignorance  made  him  averse  to  associating  with  men  of 
culture  and  science.  Accustomed  from  childhood  chiefly  to 
female  society,  he  continued  into  old  age  to  feel  the  neces- 
sity of  surrounding  himself  with  women,  and  of  being  ac- 
companied by  them  upon  his  frequent  expeditions.  The  first 
who  seriously  engaged  his  affections  was  Maria  Mancini, 
niece  of  the  cardinal,  but  he  was  compelled  to  forego  his 
inclination  for  her.  Mademoiselle  de  la  Motte  d'Argen- 
court  was  separated  from  him  and  shut  up  in  a  convent. 
But  shortly  after  his  marriage  with  the  daughter  of  Philip 
IV.,  whom  he  never  loved,  begins  the  series  of  ladies  upon 
whom  Louis,  sometimes  simultaneously,  bestowed  his 


330  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

favours :  De  la  Valliere,  de  Montespan,  de  Fontanges,  de 
Soubise,  and  others  less  notorious.  In  the  beginning  these 
liaisons  were  kept  secret.  But  gradually,  first  at  court  and 
then  in  public,  with  pomp  and  pageant,  as  if  to  defy  the 
opinion  of  the  world,  he  caused  himself  to  be  accompanied 
by  his  mistresses  wherever  he  went ;  he  afforded  them  the 
spectacle  of  sieges  and  blockades,  he  permitted  them  the 
utmost  extravagance  in  expenditure,  and  regarded  with 
pleasure  the  homage  paid  to  them,  holding,  however,  strictly 
to  the  rule  of  allowing  them  no  influence  in  political 
affairs. 

At  length  Fraii9oise  d'Aubigne  made  her  appearance  at 
court,  and  before  long  attracted  his  attention.  This  woman, 
who  was  three  years  his  senior,  though  little  noticed  by  him 
at  first,  slowly  but  surely,  with  silent  but  irresistible  force, 
took  possession,  for  a  time  in  company  with  others,  but 
afterwards  exclusively,  of  the  monarch's  heart  and  mind. 
She  became  indispensable  to  him,  and  from  henceforth  no 
other  woman  had  any  attraction  for  him. 

This  remarkable  personage,  who  died  one  hundred  and 
sixty-six  years  ago,  still  lives  in  the  pages  of  history. 
During  her  lifetime  and  even  since  her  death  she  has  exer- 
cised an  irresistible  power  of  attraction  upon  all  who  have 
been  concerned  with  her.  Nevertheless,  scarcely  another 
individual  of  her  sex,  either  in  life  or  death,  has  been  so 
misrepresented  or  so  unmercifully  dealt  with  as  she.  Even 
in  our  own  day,  in  Germany  as  well  as  in  France,  opinion 
with  regard  to  her  is  divided,  tending  from  one  extreme  to 
the  other ;  she  remains,  in  short,  an  historical  riddle.  To 
assist  in  some  measure  towards  the  solution  of  the  riddle 
by  bringing  into  notice  points  in  her  life  which,  though 
hitherto  neglected,  are  yet  full  of  instruction  and  weighty 
as  evidence ;  to  amend  by  a  more  impartial  distribution  of 
the  lights  and  shades  the  misshapen  image  of  her  which  is 
frequently  presented — this,  rather  than  to  offer  an  apology 
for  her  aims  and  motives,  is  my  design. 

The  numerous  misrepresentations  of  her  history  and  the 


XII 


OF  FKENCH  HISTORY  331 


unfavourable  judgments  that  have  hence  been  passed  upon 
her  have  sprung  from  three  sources.  First,  the  work  of  La 
Beaumelle,  who  composed  about  150  years  ago  a  detailed 
history  of  the  lady  in  question,  and  gave  to  the  world  a  great 
part  of  her  letters.  La  Beaumelle  was  an  impudent  and 
unscrupulous  impostor  ;  he  forged  a  number  of  the  letters, 
mutilated  others,  and  interpolated  many  passages.  This, 
although  previously  suspected,  has  only  lately  been  conclu- 
sively proved  by  Lavallee,  who  had  all  the  originals  in  his 
hands.  By  this  it  has  become  evident  that  the  very  pass- 
ages which  have  been  most  frequently  quoted  as  character- 
istic of  her  nature  and  ways,  and  regarded  as  descriptive  of 
her  individuality,  are  forgeries.  The  proof  of  this  has  been 
established  since  1866,  but  the  original  falsifications  are 
none  the  less  persistently  cited  on  both  sides  of  the  Ehine, 
and  continue  to  form  the  grounds  upon  which  she  is 
judged  and  condemned.  La  Beaumelle' s  falsehoods  were 
principally  fabricated  with  a  view  to  make  Madame  de 
Maintenon  appear  as  a  clever,  cold  coquette,  who  artfully 
calculated  upon  gradually  setting  Madame  de  Montespan 
aside  and  taking  her  place.  He  has,  besides,  by  forging 
letters  purporting  to  be  from  her  to  the  famous  Ninon  de 
TEnclos,  cast  suspicion  upon  her  early  life,  which  all  her 
contemporaries  acknowledged  to  have  been  blameless.  In 
the  fictitious  letters  he  frequently  makes  her  express  her- 
self in  the  half  frivolous,  half  sentimental  fashion  of  a 
Parisian  lady  of  1750  ;  evidently  desiring  by  such  spicy 
additions  to  make  the  dish  that  he  sets  before  his  contem- 
poraries more  palatable.  A  considerable  time  will  yet  elapse 
before  the  false  Maintenon  who  has  become  stereotyped  in 
history  and  literature  will  have  disappeared.  Our  most 
trusted  historians  still  allow  themselves  to  be  misled  by 
this  ignis  fatuus ;  Kanke  even  has  not  kept  himself  free 
from  it.  The  Duke  de  Noailles'  great  work  upon  Madame 
de  Maintenon  has  been  likewise  distorted  by  frequent  quo- 
tations from  the  forged  letters  and  interpolated  passages. 
Notwithstanding  that  her  correspondence  down  to  the  year 


832  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

1701  has  been  for  twenty  years  before  the  public  in  its 
genuine  form,  there  has  been  no  lack  of  new  books  of  late 
years,  even  down  to  the  present  day,  into  which  the  La 
Beaumelle  fictions  have  been  introduced. 

Meanwhile,  the  exposure  of  La  Beaumelle' s  extensive 
forgery,  the  date  of  which  coincided  with  the  fabrication  of 
a  heap  of  similar  impostures,  notably  of  some  pretended 
autograph  letters  of  Marie  Antoinette,  awoke  a  hypercritical 
tendency  in  Paris  to  declare  the  Maintenon  letters  newly 
published  by  Lavallee  to  be  unauthentic.  Grimblot,  who 
undertook  to  prove  this,1  built  his  hypothesis  upon  supposed 
contradictions  between  the  statements  of  these  letters  and 
those  of  Dangeau's  diary  of  the  same  date.  The  discre- 
pancies, however,  were  merely  the  result  of  the  arbitrary 
addition  of  dates  by  a  later  hand,  in  some  instances  by 
Lavallee  himself,  to  letters  which  had  been  undated  origi- 
nally. The  supposition  that  the  letters  were  fabricated  a 
few  years  ago  is  entirely  disproved  by  the  existence  of  the 
manuscript  in  the  possession  of  the  Due  de  Mouchy. 

In  France  the  person  who  next  to  La  Beaumelle  has 
contributed  to  mislead  public  opinion  with  regard  to 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  is  the  Due  de  Saint- Simon.  This 
great  master  in  the  art  of  narration  and  delineation  of 
character,  her  junior  by  many  years,  never,  or  scarcely  ever, 
came  into  contact  with  her  personally.  He  hated  her 
because,  in  the  first  place,  in  his  opinion  she  had  pre- 
sumptuously thrust  herself  into  a  position  destructive  of 
the  hierarchical  system  of  the  court,  thereby  lowering  the 
king  in  the  eyes  of  all  Europe.  He  hated  her  because,  in 

1  Les  faux  autograplics  de  Madame,  de  Maintenon  (Paris,  1867).  A 
German  critic,  in  Von  Sebel's  Historische  Zcitschrift,  xviii.  231,  forthwith 
imagined  that  Grimblot  had  fully  proved  his  point.  However,  since  the 
appearance  of  Geffroi's  inquiry  in  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  1869,  vol. 
Ixxix.  p.  302  ff.,  scarcely  any  one  would  continue  to  doubt  the  authenticity 
of  the  letters  in  question.  The  impress  of  Madame  de  Maintenon's  spirit 
and  of  the  circumstances  in  which  she  was  placed  are  unmistakable  in  them. 
Geffroi,  moreover,  particularly  shows,  after  careful  comparison  with  the 
originals,  that  Lavallee  has  never  allowed  himself  to  be  deceived  by  un- 
authentic matter. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  333 

the  second  place,  he  saw  in  her  the  governess  and  protectress 
of  the  legitimatised  princes  whom  he  cordially  detested. 
That  gossip,  back-biting,  and  slander  should  beset  the  foot- 
steps of  a  woman  universally  envied  and  shrouded  moreover 
in  mystery — a  woman  who  must  of  necessity  refuse  so 
many  wishes  and  petitions — is  comprehensible.  Saint- 
Simon  in  the  case  of  those  whom  he  hated  was  very  ready 
to  accept  reports  and  tales  hatched  in  the  poisonous  atmo- 
sphere of  Versailles,  and  touched  up  and  circulated  by 
chamber- women  and  valets  ;  how  little  he  is  to  be  trusted, 
particularly  upon  the  history  of  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
Cheruel  and  Eanke  have  already  proved. 

To  these  two  false  or  doubtful  witnesses  may  be 
added  a  third — which,  so  far  as  Germany  is  concerned,  is 
evidently  most  important  testimony — the  letters  of  the 
Duchess  of  Orleans,  Elisabeth  Charlotte  ;  and  accordingly 
it  is  upon  them  principally  that  opinion  in  Germany  has 
been  founded  with  regard  to  Madame  de  Maintenon,  whilst 
at  the  same  time  they  have  continued  to  form  the  greatest- 
hindrance  to  a  more  correct  estimate  of  her.  This  princess 
of  the  Palatinate  was,  without  herself  being  certain  of  it,  the 
sister-in-law  of  Madame  de  Maintenon.  The  two  women 
lived  side  by  side  for  thirty  years  in  constant  intercourse, 
yet,  from  a  fundamental  difference  of  character,  totally 
estranged  from  each  other.  Like  almost  all  the  German 
princesses  who  married  into  France,  Elisabeth  Charlotte 
was  thoroughly  unhappy  ;  her  husband,  the  king's  brother, 
was  a  copy  of  the  last  Valois,  Henry  III.,  as  effeminate,  vain, 
and  vicious  as  he  had  been,  entirely  governed  by  unworthy 
favourites,  whom  he  allowed  to  torment  and  persecute  his 
wife.  She  was  terribly  sinned  against,  and  in  this  even  the 
king  himself  was  not  free  from  blame ;  but  she  sought  and 
found  another  individual  upon  whom  to  lay  the  responsi- 
bility and  to  vent  her  hatred,  and  that  was  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon.  Her  utterances  with  regard  to  her  sister-in-law 
are  full  of  contradictions  and  palpable  falsehoods.  She 
represents  her  as  a  fury  in  human  shape,  a  murderess  and 


384  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

poisoner,  who  has  sowed  mischief  and  dissension  in  all  direc- 
tions ;  a  hypocrite  who  has  supplied  the  dauphin  with 
mistresses.  Madame  de  Maintenon,  according  to  her,  has 
with  the  help  of  the  midwife  made  away  with  the  dauphiness 
— the  Bavarian  princess — has  led  astray  the  Duchess  of  Bur- 
gundy whom  she  brought  up,  has  bought  up  corn  as  a  specula- 
tion, to  enrich  herself  in  the  famine  of  1709.  She  has 
poisoned  Louvois  and  the  architect  Mansard.  She  is  the 
cause  of  all  the  evil  which  has  come  upon  France.  Even 
in  the  year  1719,  when  living  in  retirement  at  Saint-Cyr, 
she  caused  the  castle  of  Luneville  to  be  set  on  fire,  merely 
because  the  Duke  of  Lorraine  did  not  belong  to  the  parti- 
sans of  the  Duke  of  Maine.  So  also  from  her  retreat  in 
Saint-Cyr  she  has  formed  or  fostered  all  the  conspiracies 
against  the  regents.  The  duchess  is  perfectly  positive  upon 
all  these  points  ;  she  does  not  indeed  name  her  authority 
for  them,  but  she  hints  at  other  and  more  disgraceful 
things  of  which  she  has  received  intelligence  or  which  she 
suspects. 

We  here  encounter  one  of  those  unfathomable  abysses 
of  the  human  heart  which  sometimes  baffle  the  historian. 
All  these  monstrous  accusations  are  so  entirely  at  variance 
with  the  real  story  that  no  one  would  be  willing  to  waste 
time  in  a  serious  examination  of  them.  Saint-Simon's 
charges  have  nothing  in  common  with  this  catalogue  of 
crimes  and  abominable  deeds.  The  fierce  hatred  which 
breathes  through  the  letters  of  the  duchess  during  a  period 
of  thirty-five  years  is  not,  however,  without  remarkable 
changes  and  interruptions.  To  render  such  a  state  of 
feeling  comprehensible  we  must  reflect  that  the  duchess,  in 
order  not  to  remain  entirely  apart  from  her  husband,  was 
forced  to  live  in  a  morally  pestilential  atmosphere  ;  that  she 
was  obliged  to  tolerate  the  society  of  his  favourites,  such  as 
the  Chevalier  de  Lorraine,  D'Effiat,  and  their  companions ; 
as  profligate  a  crew  as  could  be  found  even  in  a  corrupt  court 
in  those  days.  In  her  letters,  as  a  rule,  she  shows  herself 
fair  in  judgment,  well  informed,  by  no  means  credulous  or 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  835 

fond  of  scandal.  Her  judgment  of  persons  around  her 
tends  most  often  towards  moral  indifference.  But  where 
her  passion  interferes  she  is  ready  forthwith  to  adopt  and 
spread  any  malicious  gossip  or  unfounded  invention  to  be 
gathered  out  of  the  sink  of  iniquity  which  certainly  she 
has  at  hand.  As  she  made  no  secret  of  her  aversion  for 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  her  attendants  vied  with  one  another 
in  furnishing  welcome  sustenance  for  the  feeling.  At  a 
time  when  the  poisoning  plots  of  Brinvilliers  and  Lavoisin 
had  their  ramifications  in  the  highest  regions  of  society  ; 
when  for  years  whole  provinces  were  the  theatre  of  out- 
rageous crimes  committed  by  the  nobles  and  long  left 
unpunished  ;  when  at  court  the  Chevalier  de  Lorraine  could 
poison  the  king's  sister-in-law  (Charlotte's  predecessor),  and 
yet  be  more  than  tolerated,  even  favoured,  by  the  king — we 
can  to  a  certain  extent  understand  how  the  duchess,  with 
her  imagination  fertilised  by  such  association,  might  credit 
a  like  tissue  of  infamy. 

Charlotte  herself  informs  us  that  she  has  given  herself 
much  useless  trouble  in  endeavouring  to  secure  Madame  de 
Maintenon' s  favour  and  to  obtain  admission  to  her  evening 
circle.  She  does  not  appear  to  have  felt  how  much  by  this 
confession  she  weakened  her  own  accusations.  Her  hatred 
flowed  principally  from  three  sources  :  from  mortified  pride 
of  rank,  from  jealousy — she  herself  declared  to  the  king  that 
it  was  for  love  of  him  that  she  hated  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon — and  from  an  erroneous  fancy  that  the  latter  caused 
her  to  be  suspected  by  Louis  on  account  of  her  religious 
connections. 

At  a  court  where  the  length  of  a  mantle  or  the  triple 
grades  of  distinction  in  a  seat — stool,  chair,  or  arm-chair — 
were  weighty  questions  for  earnest  discussion,  Charlotte 
jealously  insisted  upon  the  tokens  of  precedence  which  were 
due  to  her,  both  as  a  Germ  an  princess  and  as  the  sister-in-law 
of  the  king.  But  now,  as  she  herself  tells  us,  she  was  forced 
to  see  even  the  royal  princes  esteeming  it  a  favour,  and 
every  one  an  honour,  to  be  allowed  to  wait  upon  the  widow 


336  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

of  Scarron,  and  the  princesses  performing  the  duties  of 
ladies  in  waiting,  whilst  she,  the  duchess,  who  took  prece- 
dence by  rank,  sat  alone  and  neglected  in  her  own  apart- 
ments. 

It  is  a  manifest  exaggeration  when  she  says,  '  The 
Maintenon  is  absolute  mistress  of  all  his  thoughts  and 
feelings.'  How  little  this  was  the  case,  how  cautious  Madame 
de  Maintenon  often  had  to  be,  her  letters  to  Noailles  and 
others  show.  The  lukewarm  Catholicism  of  his  sister-in- 
law,  the  recollection  that  she  had  changed  her  religion  only 
under  constraint,  her  attachment  to  her  Protestant  rela- 
tions and  constant  correspondence  with  them,  her  undis- 
guised preference  for  German  habits,  interests,  and  people, 
besides  some  unfeminine  traits  in  her  disposition  and  the 
cynicism  of  her  expressions  in  writing  and  conversation — 
all  these  were  repulsive  to  the  king,  and  continually  excited 
his  suspicions.  The  consciousness,  besides,  that  he  had 
upon  two  occasions,  first  with  regard  to  the  claims  upon  the 
Palatinate,  and  secondly  upon  the  marriage  of  her  son, 
deeply  injured  this  woman,  whom  his  brother  had  already 
made  miserable,  widened  the  breach.  She  could  forgive 
him,  but  he  could  not  pardon  one  whom  he  had  so  often  and 
so  deeply  wronged.  She,  and  she  alone,  of  the  whole  family 
was  excluded  from  the  holy  of  holies,  as  she  calls  the 
apartment  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  where  the  king  spent 
his  evenings.  This  was  natural  enough  because,  both  in  reli- 
gious and  political  matters,  she  was  credited  with  independent 
sentiments,  and  was  also  justly  suspected  of  making  confi- 
dants of  her  relations  in  the  north — of  the  Electress  Sophia 
of  Zell  for  instance,  the  natural  opponent  of  the  Anglo- 
French  policy — as  to  all  that  she  could  glean  in  that  circle.  It 
was  known  that  she  spent  whole  days  in  letter-writing.  In 
addition  to  all  this,  her  own  husband,  as  she  complains,  and 
even  her  son,  calumniated  her  to  the  king.  She  was  sur- 
rounded by  spies,  in  want  of  money,  neglected  and  shunned, 
continually  tortured  and  hurt  in  her  innermost  feelings  ; 
and  so  she  gathers  up  all  her  grievances  and  mortifications 


in  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  337 

as  in  a  vessel,  to  pour  them  upon  the  detested  head  of  the 
woman  whom  she  envied.  This  she  does  in  the  most 
passionate  way  and  with  the  most  vulgar  expressions ;  she 
often  seems  to  be  quivering  with  rage  as  she  writes. 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  on  the  contrary,  who  never  indulges 
in  unfavourable  remarks  upon  other  women,  seldom  men- 
tions the  duchess,  and  if  she  does  so,  always  with  respect. 
'  She  has  qualities  which  might  make  her  happy,'  she  says. 
'  She  hates  me,  yet  shows  me  more  consideration  than  is 
due  to  me.' 2  Charlotte  often  stood  in  need  of  her  interpo- 
sition and  made  her  the  mouthpiece  of  her  wishes  to  the 
king,  and  so  outward  deference  and  attempts  at  reconcilia- 
tion alternate  with  passionate  outbreaks  of  fury  and  abhor- 
rence. She  recks  not  of  the  self-accusation  that  is  contained 
in  her  information,  when  she  pities  herself  for  having  taken 
so  much  trouble  in  vain  to  win  the  favours  and  friendship  — 
to  get  into  the  '  good  graces,'  she  says — of  the  same  person 
whom  at  the  next  moment  she  proceeds  to  depict  as  a  demon  in 
human  shape  capable  of  any  enormity.  Madame  de  Mainte- 
non she  imagines  has  deprived  her  of  everything  she  valued. 
First  of  all  of  the  king's  love  ;  she  loved  him  on  her  part, 
according  to  her  own  account,  tenderly,  as  a  father  ;  but  this 
father  was  only  fourteen  years  her  senior,  and  the  hand- 
somest, most  irresistible  man  in  France.  Once,  in  the  year 
1676,  he  had  paid  her  some  attention,  but  never  again. 
Since  the  queen's  death,  the  widow  of  Scarron  had  become 
the  first  lady  in  Versailles  ;  treated  by  the  court  like '  a  god- 
dess,' says  Elisabeth  Charlotte.  This,  as  the  dauphiness 
was  a  nonentity,  ought  to  have  been  her  destiny.  She 
soon  got  into  the  habit  of  ascribing  every  mortification  that 
came  to  her  from  the  king,  such  as  rebukes  for  her  too 
great  freedom  of  speech,  to  the  influence  of  this  detested 
rival ;  for  the  king  only  loved  and  hated  as  she  dictated  to 
him.  Whilst  Madame  de  Maintenon  is  for  ever  lamenting 
the  slavery  in  which  she  lives,  Charlotte  imagines  that  the 
most  wilful  monarch  in  Europe  is  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of 
2  Letters  to  Madame  des  Ursins,  i.  291. 


338  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

his  wife.  It  never  occurs  to  her  that  her  capricious  and  in 
many  ways  repulsive  nature — a  perpetual  source  of  discord 
at  that  court — would,  even  if  Madame  de  Maintenon  had  not 
been  there,  have  displeased  the  king.  She  betrays,  more- 
over, the  tainted  source  from  which  she  drew  her  accusa- 
tions, the  vicious  favourites  of  her  husband,  the  Chevalier 
de  Lorraine,  D'Effiat  and  his  companions,  men  whom  she 
herself  loathed,  and  of  whose  slanderous  talk,  if  it  had  con- 
cerned one  of  her  German  relations,  she  would  not  have 
believed  a  word.  But  the  fervour  of  her  hatred  had,  as 
it  were,  distorted  her  otherwise  clear-sighted  intelligence, 
and  produced  in  her,  with  regard  to  this  one  individual,  a 
species  of  monomania,  a  diseased  appetite  for  calumni- 
ation. 

At  the  death  of  Charlotte's  husband  in  1701,  Madame 
de  Maintenon  showed  herself  so  sympathetic  and  helpful 
that  the  duchess,  following  the  wish  of  the  king  and  her  own 
impulse  of  the  moment,  was  reconciled  to  her,  and  after- 
wards wrote  her  a  letter  in  which,  with  assurances  of  the 
most  sincere  friendship,  she  begged  for  advice  and  instruc- 
tion. Shortly  afterwards  she  again  wrote,  '  All  the  king's 
benefits  to  me  come  through  her,  and  my  friendship  will 
soon  equal  the  respect  I  owe  her.' 3  Nevertheless  there  is 
presently  a  relapse  into  the  old  animosity  with  the  usual 
invectives ;  and  the  paroxysm  lasts  several  years,  until  the 
marriage  of  her  daughter  with  Louis's  grandson,  the  Duke  of 
Berri,  which  was  partly  the  work  of  Madame  de  Maintenon. 
Now  again  it  is  recorded,  *  She  has  behaved  very  well  in  this 
affair,  and  I  have  nothing  to  say  against  her.'  Finally 
came  the  death  of  the  king  and  the  triumph  of  her  son  as 
regent  over  Madame  de  Maintenon' s  favourite,  the  Duke  of 
Maine ;  and  although  she  paid  a  visit  to  that  lady  after  her 
retirement  to  Saint-Cyr,  her  letters  indicate  that  the  old 
bitterness  has  broken  out  again  with,  if  possible,  re- 
doubled force,  which  even  the  death  of  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon  cannot  mitigate.  One  is  reminded  of  the  proverb 

3  The  letters  are  printed  in  the  Journal  des  Savans,  1861,  p.  760. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  339 

of  Larochefoucauld :  '  Envy  is  everi  more  implacable  tha'n 
hatred.5 

The  grandfather  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  was  one  of 
the  most  famous  Frenchmen  of  his  time.  This  was  Agrippa 
d'Aubigne,  a  leader  and  champion  amongst  the  reformers, 
as  bold  with  his  sword  as  with  his  pen,  the  friend  and  com- 
panion-in-arms of  Henry  IV.  His  unworthy  son,  who  early 
in  life  had  fallen  under  sentence  of  death,  had  been  led  by 
well-merited  misfortune  into  the  prison  of  Niort,  and  there 
Fran9oise  was  born.  Poverty  and  bitter  privation  sur* 
rounded  her  earliest  awakening  to  consciousness.  She  was 
taken  as  a  child  by  her  father  to  America,  and  a  few  years 
later  brought  back  to  France  by  her  then  widowed  mother. 
The  poverty  of  the  mother  induced  an  aunt,  Madame  de 
Vilette,  to  adopt  the  girl,  and  to  bring  her  up  as  a  Protes- 
tant ;  but  after  some  years  Fran9oise  was  placed  in  a  con- 
vent by  another  relation,  where,  after  a  prolonged  resistance, 
she  yielded  and  became  a  Catholic.  She  subsequently  related 
how,  at  twelve  years  old,  Bible  in  hand,  she  made  the  busi- 
ness of  her  conversion  a  tough  one  to  the  priests,  and  how 
it  was  two  years  before  she  gave  in.  By  the  death  of  her 
mother,  she  was  left  alone  in  the  world  and  utterly  destitute, 
a  good-looking  girl  only  fifteen  years  of  age.  To  avoid 
taking  the  veil,  she  consented  to  marry  the  comic  poet  Scar- 
ron.  Owing  to  the  age  and  the  crippled  condition  of  the  man, 
the  marriage  was  one  only  in  appearance  ;  Fran9oise  served 
him  as  both  nurse  and  secretary,  and  he  became  her  in- 
structor ;  she  was  indebted  to  him  for  the  education  of  her 
mind,  and  for  the  knowledge  of  three  languages,  Latin 
amongst  the  number  ;  she  enjoyed,  besides,  the  society  of  a 
circle  of  authors  and  friends  of  literature,  both  male  and 
female,  who  were  in  the  habit  of  gathering  round  the  inva- 
riably cheerful  and  witty  poet.  After  some  years,  on 
Scarron's  death,  she  again  became  free.  The  young  widow 
lived  for  a  considerable  time  in  Paris  in  moderate  circum- 
stances, but  welcomed  and  generally  esteemed  in  the  highest 

z  2 


340  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

literary  circles  of  which  the  capital  could  boast.  Madame 
de  Montespan  now  invited  her  to  undertake  the  education 
of  the  children  whom  she  had  secretly  borne  to  the  king. 
Madame  Scarron  consented,  upon  condition  that  she  should 
receive  the  commission  directly  from  the  king,  and  she  then 
forthwith  took  up  her  abode  in  a  remote,  isolated  house  in 
Paris,  where  she  fulfilled  her  calling  in  quiet  seclusion. 

When,  in  1673,  the  king  acknowledged  the  children 
and  caused  them  to  be  brought  up  in  his  vicinity  at  Ver- 
sailles, Madame  Scarron  was  suddenly  transplanted  to  the 
court,  which  she  at  first  found  very  attractive.  For  a  con- 
siderable time  she  received  little  notice  from  the  king ;  he 
looked  upon  her  as  a  somewhat  cultivated  genius ;  but 
when  he  gradually  perceived  the  care  with  which  she 
watched  over  the  welfare  of  his  children,  particularly  that 
of  his  favourite,  the  sickly  Duke  of  Maine,  he  endeavoured 
to  retain  her  in  his  service.  The  two  women,  however, 
could  not  endure  each  other.  Madame  Scarron  knew,  or 
believed,  that  Madame  de  Montespan,  who  alone  possessed 
the  king's  ear,  prejudiced  him  against  her  by  accusing 
her  of  caprice  ;  Madame  de  Montespan  could  not  endure 
the  presence  of  a  lady  whose  opinion,  even  if  unspoken,  of 
her  doubly  guilty  relation  to  the  king  she  either  knew  or 
divined.  To  Fran9oise  the  situation  became  so  painful 
that  for  a  time  she  hesitated  whether  to  give  up  the  posi- 
tion and  leave  the  court.  However,  her  confessor,  the 
Abbe  Gobelin,  to  whom,  in  letters  which  are  still  pre- 
served, she  described  the  torment  of  her  position,  advised 
and  exhorted  her  to  persevere,  for  the  sake  of  the  good 
she  might  effect  at  court.  By  degrees  the  king  began 
to  find  pleasure  in  the  conversation  of  an  unassuming 
woman  of  refined  mind.  She  introduced  him,  as  Madame  de 
Sevigne  expresses  it,  *  to  an  entirely  new  country,'  the  peace- 
ful intercourse  of  friendship  without  the  excitement  of  pas- 
sion. Madame  de  Montespan  had  accustomed  him  to  violent 
changes  of  humour — stormy  outbreaks  alternating  with 
tender  submission — to  witty,  but  malicious  comments  upon 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  341 

others;  here  he  found  modesty  and  reserve,  coupled 
with  genuine  womanly  worth ;  a  cultivation  of  mind 
superior  to  his  own;  agreeable  conversation,  combining 
gaiety  with  seriousness. 

Soon  a  royal  grant  transformed  the  widow  Scar r on 
into  Madame  de  Maintenon,  the  owner  of  a  country  seat 
of  the  same  name.  After  a  time  the  king,  whose  affec- 
tions now  inclined  more  and  more  towards  her,  appointed 
her  as  lady-in-waiting  (dame  d'atour)  to  the  dauphiness, 
thus  putting  an  end  to  her  distasteful  relations  with 
Madame  de  Montespan,  and  securing  her  an  almost  inde- 
pendent position  at  court.  In  1680  she  already  stood  so 
high  and  secure  in  the  monarch's  good  graces  that  she 
wrote  to  her  brother  that  she  would  ask  nothing  of  the 
king,  since  he  loaded  her  with  riches,  honours,  and  benefits 
of  every  kind. 

Even  in  the  early  days  of  her  rise  to  favour,  in  1675, 
she  had  ventured,  encouraged  by  clerical  advice,  to  draw 
the  king's  attention  to  the  scandal  of  his  doubly  adulterous 
relations.  This  she  did  without  any  arriere-pensee  ;  for 
the  queen  was  still  alive,  younger  than  herself,  and  per- 
fectly healthy.  Her  words,  as  yet,  made  no  impression ; 
Madame  de  Montespan  gave  birth  to  a  daughter  by  the 
king  two  years  afterwards.  Even  in  1684,  the  very  year 
of  his  marriage  with  Madame  de  Maintenon,  the  king  was 
still  in  the  habit  of  visiting  Madame  de  Montespan  twice 
a  day.  These  visits,  however,  were  only  for  the  sake  of 
his  children.  Madame  de  Maintenon  had  used  her  influ- 
ence to  bring  him  back  to  his  long  neglected  and  much 
injured  Spanish  wife.  In  this  she  succeeded,  and  the 
queen  gratefully  acknowledged  that  she  was  indebted  to 
her  for  this  happiness.  Madame  de  Sevigne  mentions, 
as  early  as  1676,  that  Madame  Scarron  had  then  gained 
universal  admiration  in  her  arduous  position,  and  in  the 
three  years  from  1680  to  1683  she  stood  at  the  height  of 
her  fame ;  all  paid  homage  to  her,  all  bowed  down  before 
her,  and,  as  Madame  de  Sevigne  expresses  it,  she  was  the 


342  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

soul  of  the  court — of  that  court  which  at  the  time  was 
the  quintessence  of  French  society.  These  must  certainly 
have  been  the  happiest  years  of  her  life. 

On  July  30,  1683,  the  queen  died,  and,  after  a  brief 
delay,  in  the  beginning  of  1684,  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
now  fifty  years  of  age,  became  the  wife  of  Louis,  the 
marriage  ceremony  taking  place  secretly  at  night.  The 
marriage  had  been  resolved  upon  in  the  September  of 
1683,  as  is  proved  by  a  letter  from  Madame  de  Maintenon 
to  Gobelin,  referring  to  the  peace  of  mind  which  she  is 
now  enjoying  after  a  period  of  inward  distraction  and  pain- 
ful hesitation,  and  observing  that  she  stands  in  need  of 
the  strength  that  comes  from  God  to  make  a  good  use  of 
her  happiness.  The  king  had  previously,  in  a  cabinet 
council,  declared  that  he  did  not  intend  to  enter  upon  a 
second  marriage — meaning  one  of  equal  birth,  which  would 
have  given  a  prospect  of  an  increase  of  the  royal  family, 
already  numerous.  Had  he  been  a  German  prince  he  would 
probably  have  adopted  the  form  of  a  morganatic  marriage, 
which  would  have  conferred  upon  the  object  of  his  choice 
the  position  and  consideration  of  his  wife  before  God  and 
the  world,  although  without  political  rights.  That  this  was 
not  the  case,  and  that  the  marriage  was  not  made  known, 
was  a  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  to 
which  she  doubtless  resigned  herself  with  difficulty;  for 
she  knew  full  well  that  she  was  injuring  her  reputation, 
which  she  had  hitherto  guarded  so  carefully,  and  that,  at 
any  rate  at  a  distance,  both  in  and  out  of  France,  she 
would  appear  as  only  the  last  on  the  numerous  list  of 
royal  mistresses.  But  here  the  authority  of  the  church, 
always  paramount  with  her,  intervened.  The  priests  to 
whom  she  had  entrusted  her  conscience,  Gobelin  and  Godet 
des  Marais,  told  her — and  the  success  she  had  already 
achieved  warranted  the  idea — that  it  was  her  vocation, 
her  mission,  to  labour  at  the  side  of  the  king,  for  the 
salvation  of  his  soul,  and  for  the  welfare  of  the  church 
and  the  nation.  Two  or  three  bishops,  and — according  to 


xii  OF  FBENCH  HISTOKY  343 

a  tradition  preserved  in  Saint-Cyr — the  pope  himself, 
joined  in  persuading  her,  and  this  fact  is  now  placed  beyond 
doubt  by  the  papal  letters  addressed  to  the  lady  containing 
the  permission  or  dispensation  from  Eome. 

According  to  statements  afterwards  repeatedly  made  by 
contemporaries,  she  ardently  desired  the  public  announce- 
ment of  her  marriage,  and  twice  almost  persuaded  the  king 
to  grant  her  wish ;  but  the  bishops  and  ministers  of  whom 
counsel  was  asked — to  Louvois  she  is  said  to  have  gone  down 
on  her  knees—dissuaded  the  king  from  it.  The  thing  is 
hardly  credible.  Shortly  after  her  marriage  Madame  de 
Maintenon  wrote  to  her  brother :  *  I  shall  never  advance  a 
step  higher,  I  have  already  been  raised  too  high.'  In  a 
letter  from  her  director,  Godet,  she  is  said  to  have  willingly 
sacrificed  an  earthly  kingdom  for  a  heavenly  one  ;  for  she 
had  been  taught  to  regard  the  renunciation  of  the 
avowal  of  her  marriage  as  a  sacrifice  to  be  offered  up  to 
God.  She  accordingly  destroyed  all  letters  and  records 
which  gave  testimony  to  her  marriage,  saying  to  her  con- 
fidential friend  :  '  None  shall  learn  what  I  have  been  to  the 
king.' 

The  German  historian  who  has  rendered  most  justice 
to  this  lady,  and  has  appreciated  her  with  the  finest 
discernment,  Karl  von  Noorden,4  is  uncertain  whether  a 
religious  marriage  took  place,  although  he  deems  it  pro- 
bable, and  lays  stress  on  the  fact  that  Eanke  also — 
wisely,  as  Noorden  remarks — has  avoided  any  precise 
assertion  as  to  her  being  the  lawful  wife  of  Louis.  But 
the  letters  of  the  Bishop  of  Chartres,  who  was  in  the 
secret,  the  exhortations  contained  in  them  that  she  should 
not  refuse  to  the  king  his  rights  as  her  husband,  and  the 
letter  to  the  king  himself  from  the  bishop,  in  which  he 
alludes  to  his  happiness  in  possessing  so  excellent  and 
loving  a  companion  for  life,5  leave  no  further  room  for 
doubt. 

4  Europaische  Geschichte  im  IS.  Jahrhundert,  iii.  17. 

5  '  Vous  avez  une  excellente  compagne,  pleine  d'esprit  de  Dieu  et  de  dis- 


344  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

Let  us  now  endeavour  to  picture  to  ourselves,  both  upon 
their  good  and  bad  sides,  this  wonderful  pair,  who,  although 
so  strongly  contrasting  in  character,  yet  passed  thirty 
years  in  uninterrupted  harmony. 

Louis  was  a  magnificent  man,  perfect  in  bodily  pro- 
portion, with  regular  and  beautiful  features.  Whatever 
he  did  was  done  calmly,  with  grace  and  dignity.  He 
possessed,  to  an  eminent  degree,  the  gift  of  saying  the 
suitable,  agreeable  thing  to  every  one,  and  he  never  said 
what  could  hurt.  He  was  patient,  was  complete  master  of 
his  emotions  and  countenance,  never  lost  his  temper,  seldom 
found  fault,  and  then  without  harshness.  Irresistibly 
attractive,  yet  dignified  in  his  friendliness  and  condescen- 
sion, he  played  the  hospitable  host  at  Versailles,  was  always 
indulgent  to  the  feelings  of  those  around  him,  and  solici- 
tous in  providing  pastimes  and  amusements  both  of  the  finer 
and  coarser  sort.  He  combined  in  himself  so  much  that  was 
attractive  to  men  and  women  that  their  admiration  often 
took  the  form  of  adoration,  as  though  he  were  a  demigod. 

To  reign  for  Louis  signified  to  command.  He  felt 
himself  a  ruler  both  over  minds  and  bodies,  and  the  source 
of  all  justice  and  honour.  None  in  France  should  be 
anything  save  through  him.  To  see  him  and  to  be 
seen  by  him  was  the  most  serious  occupation  which  he 
could  devise  for  the  nobles  who  thronged  his  court.  He 
was  not  so  much  the  father  of  his  country  as  the  master 
of  it,  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word.  Care  for  his  royal 
dignity,  for  his  personal  prestige,  was  supreme  with  him. 
For  in  him  the  state,  the  national  power  and  greatness, 
were  concentrated  and  embodied ;  without  him  France  would 
have  been  only  a  heap  of  individual  atoms.  His  views 
were  part  of  the  religious  opinions  in  which  he  had  been 
educated,  and  were  carefully  fostered  by  the  clergy. 

cernement,  et  dont  la  tendresse,  la  sensibilite  pour  vous  sont  sans  egales. 
II  a  plu  a  Dieu  que  je  connusse  le  fond  de  son  cceur.  Je  serais  bien  sa 
caution,  Sire,  qu'on  ne  peut  vous  aimer  plus  tendrement  ni  plus  respectueuse- 
luent  qu'elle  ne  vous  aime.'  Corrcsp.  Mine,  dc  M.  iv.  196. 


in  OF  FKENCH  HISTORY  845 

France,  according  to  him,  has  the  leadership  of  all  Christen- 
dom as  the  oldest,  most  powerful,  and  most  important 
Christian  kingdom  ;  the  king  is  consequently  styled  '  the 
most  Christian,'  the '  eldest  son  of  the  church ; '  and,  by  virtue 
of  his  office,  is  the  foremost  defender  of  the  Catholic 
religion  and  church,  her  right  arm,  the  born  adversary 
and  extirpator  of  every  heresy.  The  more  power  and 
wealth  he  acquires,  the  more  his  name  is  feared,  the 
further  the  borders  of  his  kingdom  are  extended,  and  so 
much  the  better  he  is  enabled  to  fulfil  the  high  responsi- 
bility entrusted  to  him.  The  wars  which  Louis  waged 
thus  became  to  him  religious  wars ;  from  the  first,  in 
the  expedition  against  the  Netherlands,  he  asserted 
this,  and  announced  to  the  Catholic  powers  that  the 
object  of  this  campaign,  so  completely  at  variance  with 
the  previous  policy  of  France,  was  the  extirpation  of 
heresy.  Hence,  when  he  affirmed  that  his  own  aggran- 
disement was  his  most  agreeable  occupation,  his  satisfaction 
was  enhanced  and  sanctified  by  the  thought  that  the 
aggrandisement  of  France  was  a  gain  to  religion  and  the 
church  as  well.  Even  later,  when,  by  the  Peace  of  Kys- 
wick,  which  was  considered  a  disgrace  in  France,  he  had 
to  relinquish  territory  that  he  had  conquered,  he  contrived 
to  introduce  amongst  the  articles  of  the  agreement  a 
clause,  upon  the  strength  of  which  hundreds  of  Protestant 
communities  were  deprived  of  their  religious  liberties. 

Pride  was  the  most  prominent  feature  of  this  man,  a 
pride  which  often  degenerated  into  boundless  arrogance, 
and  laid,  as  it  were,  a  thick  bandage  over  his  eyes.  He 
prided  himself  in  the  thought  that,  in  spite  of  his  miserable 
education,  he  had  raised  himself  so  high  by  the  power  of 
his  own  will ;  and  had  made  himself  such  a  master  in  the  art 
of  government.  He  had,  as  he  fancied,  educated  his  minis- 
ters himself,  and  had  then  with  their  help  made  France 
into  the  first  naval  and  military  power  of  Europe,  the 
keystone  of  the  European  hegemony.  He  was  proudly 
conscious  of  the  charm  which,  in  spite  of  the  excessive 


846  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN 


XII 


burdens  laid  upon  his  people,  he  exercised  upon  all  classes 
of  Frenchmen ;  proud  of  the  victories  which  his  plans  had 
prepared  for  his  armies,  as  well  as  of  the  triumphs  of 
diplomacy  which  wisdom  and  gold  had  secured  under  the 
direction  of  one  who  so  thoroughly  understood  the  art  of 
stifling  or  extinguishing  foreign  rights,  and  of  discovering 
French  claims  upon  foreign  territory. 

How  much  there  was  to  nurture  this  intoxicating  self- 
confidence  and  to  carry  it  beyond  the  limits  of  sobriety ! 
In  flattery  and  homage  the  clergy,  with  the  bishops  at  their 
head,  strove  to  outdo  every  other  class.  The  nobility,  which 
but  recently,  in  the  time  of  the  Fronde,  had  proved  so  tur- 
bulent and  insolent,  now  thronged  his  antechamber  for  the 
mere  hope  of  catching  a  gracious  glance  from  him.  Every 
one  must  become  a  courtier  to  deserve  his  notice  and  share 
in  the  outlay  of  a  showy  and  extravagant  court ;  to  be 
enabled  to  do  so  most  of  them  were  assigned  pensions  from 
the  king,  and  were  all  the  more  willing  in  consequence  to 
renounce  all  political  rights  and  participation  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  public  affairs. 

The  egotism  so  constantly  ascribed  to  Louis  was  the 
inevitable  consequence  of  his  position,  the  logical  result  of 
absolutism  which  is  accustomed  to  deny  itself  nothing, 
which  cannot  help  referring  everything  to  itself,  and  regard- 
ing all  men  in  the  light  of  the  use  they  can  be  put  to,  or  the 
services  they  can  be  made  to  render.  It  was  the  same 
with  the  suspicious  temper  which  everywhere  accompanied 
him ;  almost  every  one,  says  his  minister 6  Torcy,  was  an 
object  of  suspicion  to  him  ;  to  every  one  he  was  ready  to  im- 
pute impure  motives.  His  daily  impressions  were  gathered 
from  a  thoroughly  corrupt  court,  but  he  certainly  did  not 
remember  that  the  court,  and  all  that  it  had  become,  was 
peculiarly  his  own  work.  The  stage  on  which  he  passed 
his  life,  its  surroundings  and  its  mephitic  atmosphere,  ex- 
plain to  us  exactly  why  he  so  often  mistook  obstinacy  for 

6  Journal  intdit,  de  M.  de  Torcy  (1884),  p.  170. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  847 

firmness,  violence  for  energy,  and  without  a  twinge  of  con- 
science wasted  thousands  of  human  lives. 

Yet  Louis  was  a  man  of  contrasts.  Whilst  all  Europe 
credited  him  with  boundless  arrogance,  he  showed  himself 
in  his  immediate  circle  gentle,  affable,  even  yielding.  Boileau, 
who  knew  this  from  experience,  said  that  at  home,  in  his 
own  circle,  he  seemed  passive  and  inclined  to  follow  sugges- 
tions rather  than  to  dictate  to  others.  In  1707,  when  years 
of  misfortune  had  come,  and  heavy  blows  of  affliction  had 
broken  his  haughty  spirit  and  lowered  his  confidence  in 
victory,  his  wife  declared  that  she  could  use  more  freedom 
in  reproaching  him  for  his  mistakes  than  she  could  have 
done  with  thousands  of  others.  He  did  not  consider  him- 
self indispensable,  and  thought  that  another  would  do  as  well 
in  his  place,  that  is  to  say,  would  equally  be  led  by  divine 
inspiration.7  But  in  saying  this  she  forgot  that  it  was  she 
alone  who  could  presume  to  remonstrate  with  him,  and 
even  she  only  upon  certain  things.  For  a  man  to  have 
ventured  upon  anything  of  the  kind,  was  inconceivable  with 
a  king  who,  from  his  youth  up,  had  displayed  aversion  and 
shyness  for  every  person  of  superior  intellect,  and  a  prefe- 
rence for  the  compliant  and  cringing.  This  characteristic 
was  emphasised  by  the  efforts  of  his  ministers  to  keep  at  a 
distance  any  man  who  might  become  influential.  Men 
conscious  of  their  own  worth  seldom  cared  to  approach  him, 
since,  as  Saint- Simon  remarks,8  to  be  acceptable  to  him  it 
was  necessary  to  appear  penetrated  with  the  sentiment  of 
one's  own  nothingness,  and  of  the  fact  that  one  was  in- 
debted to  him  for  everything.  All  greatness  must  be  only 
an  emanation  from  his  own. 

Continually  suffering  from  gout,  vertigo,  and  other 
ailments,  and  constantly  in  the  hands  of  physicians  and 
surgeons,  he  yet  possessed  sufficient  strength  of  will  to  main- 
tain the  appearance  of  robust  health  and  to  attend  incessantly 
to  business.  The  man  was  often  sick  or  suffering  when  the 

7  Lettres  historiques,  ii.  199. 

8  M^moircs,  ed.  of  1843,  xxiv.  75. 


348  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  Xn 

king  appeared  to  be  in  health.  Himself  sorely  in  need  of 
remedies,  he  was  yet  persuaded  that  he  possessed  the  royal 
gift  of  healing  others,  and  regularly,  after  receiving  the 
communion,  touched  hundreds  of  unfortunate  beings 
afflicted  with  scrofula  and  other  evils,  who  swarmed  to  Ver- 
sailles in  expectation  of  the  benefits  to  be  received  thereby. 
Louis  was  always  well  satisfied  with  himself,  nay  more, 
he  candidly  admired  himself,  the  wisdom  of  his  administra- 
tion, and  the  magnificent  results  of  his  actions.  When 
success  failed  to  follow  his  undertakings,  his  self-confidence 
was  not  thereby  shaken  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  intimates  to  us 
in  his  memoirs  that  he  carried  with  him  that  satisfaction 
*  which  a  great  mind  must  feel  when  he  has  satisfied  his  own 
virtue.'  He  could  certainly  no  longer  hide  from  himself, 
after  the  year  1690,  that  through  his  wars,  through  his 
mania  for  building,  and  his  unprecedented  extravagance,  the 
prosperity  of  the  country  had  been  destroyed,  the  people 
plunged  into  distress  and  poverty,  he  himself  crippled  in 
his  resources  for  the  future.  But  he  had  learnt  from 
Eichelieu's  testamentary  memoir — a  work,  according  to  the 
report  of  the  Venetian  ambassador,  then  highly  esteemed  at 
the  court — that  the  people  ought  to  be  kept  to  a  certain 
degree  in  poverty  lest  they  should  grow  insolent ;  and  he  was 
also  of  opinion  that,  being  the  legitimate  owner  of  all  pro- 
perty in  France,  he  might  dispose  of  it  all  according  to 
his  pleasure.  It  was  a  great  error,  he  said,  on  the  part  of  a 
monarch  to  choose  to  possess  separate  property  distinctly 
appropriated  to  him,  since  everything  in  the  country  be- 
longed to  him  equally.  Tellier,  his  confessor,  had  obtained 
a  decision  of  the  Sorbonne  which  corroborated  this 
assertion  by  pronouncing  it  a  theological  truth.  Just  as 
firmly  did  he  believe  that  he  had  the  right  to  dispose  of 
all  church  property,  although  he  abstained  from  exercising 
this  right  even  at  a  time  of  extreme  distress,  contenting 
himself  with  the  sums  granted  to  him  by  the  clergy.  It 
was  a  principle  with  him,  likewise,  that  each  individual  and 
corporate  body  was  bound  to  obey  his  orders  without  ques- 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  349 

tion  (sans  discernement) :  hence  his  contemptuous  and  over- 
bearing behaviour  towards  the «  parliaments.  He  believed 
in  absolute  unlimited  monarchy,  not  by  any  means  as  being 
one  form  of  government  amongst  others  equally  legitimate, 
but  as  the  only  form  agreeable  to  the  will  of  God.  But  he 
likewise  entertained  peculiar  views  upon  the  sincerity  and 
upon  the  observance  of  sworn  contracts.  Superior  political 
considerations  and  well-weighed  motives  of  self-interest, 
he  said,  ought  to  enable  a  man  simply  to  set  himself  above 
them  or  to  weaken  them  by  skilful  interpretations.  He  so 
frequently  put  this  doctrine  into  practice,  that  his  faithless- 
ness became  on  all  sides  a  standing  reproach,  and  delayed 
negotiations  for  peace,  or  rendered  them  more  difficult, 
often  to  the  disadvantage  of  France. 

We  are  assured  by  his  wife  that  Louis  was  exceedingly 
solicitous  for  the  happiness  of  his  people  and  anxious  to 
mitigate  the  public  distress  of  which  he  was  well  aware. 
But  the  desire  went  no  further  than  words,  and  never 
ripened  into  deeds.  Still  it  must  be  remembered  that,  from 
the  year  1702  until  the  time  of  his  death,  both  the  leisure 
and  the  power  were  wanting  to  him.  Meantime,  both  at 
Versailles  and  Marly,  he  continued  to  indulge  his  passion 
for  building,  whilst  thousands  of  his  subjects  were,  through 
his  fault,  dying  of  starvation,  and  want  of  money  was  crip- 
pling the  military  power  of  the  state  then  struggling  for  its 
very  existence.  These  characteristics  which  are  here  appa- 
rent— stubborn  hardness,  unmerciful  selfishness,  and  dis- 
regard for  human  life — meet  us  too  repeatedly  in  his  history 
to  allow  us,  as  others  have  done,  to  lay  the  responsibility 
on  his  ministers  and  on  them  alone.  He  was  too  thorough 
an  autocrat  for  that ;  no  minister,  not  even  Louvois,  would 
have  dared  to  damage  the  reputation  of  the  king  by  cruelties 
committed  on  his  own  responsibility.  When  in  a  time 
of  profound  peace  (1670),  and  in  defiance  of  the  law  of 
nations,  Louis  suddenly  fell  upon  the  Duke  of  Lorraine 
and  took  possession  of  his  country,  he  commanded  that 
the  prisoners,  men  who  had  only  done  their  duty,  should 


350  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

be  sent  to  the  galleys ;  on  the  remonstrance  of  his  minister 
Lionne,  he  merely  reiterated  the  order.9  The  barbarous 
fashion  in  which  the  war  was  carried  on  by  Louvois' 
orders,  with  the  consent  of  the  king ;  the  burning  of 
villages,  even  of  whole  towns ;  the  laying  waste  of  large 
districts  with  no  strategic  purpose,  as  in  the  Palatinate,  in 
Piedmont,  and  in  the  Netherlands;  the  wholesale  executions 
in  Gascony  and  Brittany,  where  the  people  had  been  driven 
to  revolt  through  the  intolerable  weight  of  taxation ;  the 
order  given  to  the  commissioner  appointed  to  inquire  into 
a  rebellion  of  the  kind,  that  he  should  cause  at  least 
twelve  hundred  persons  to  be  executed  before  beginning 
his  investigation — for  these  things  history  must  reckon 
with  him,  and  it  is  moreover  obliged  to  admit  that  this 
hardheartedness  at  times  wore  the  semblance  of  a  gloomy 
fanaticism,  as  if  he  had  taken  the  Duke  of  Alva  or  Simon 
of  Montfort  for  his  pattern.  This  is  sufficiently  indicated 
by  all  that  Eousset l  relates  of  his  utterances  and  orders 
with  respect  to  the  Waldenses  in  Piedmont. 


If  the  object  before  us  is  to  draw  a  true  picture  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  and  if  we  look  around  for  information 
in  the  accounts  given  by  her  contemporaries,  we  must,  as 
we  have  already  shown,  set  aside  on  many  points  the  testi- 
mony of  the  two  principal  witnesses,  Elisabeth  Charlotte  and 
Saint-Simon.  They  furnish  us,  however,  with  many  a 
detail  evidently  truthful,  as  well  as  many  an  undesigned 
admission  which  cannot  be  overlooked.  We  are  otherwise 
somewhat  destitute  of  contemporaneous  information.  Al- 
though Versailles  was  the  centre  of  the  universe  at  that 
epoch,  we  can  distinguish  only  a  few  voices  of  any  weight.  Con- 
temporary history  and  biography  could  scarcely  be  written, 
such  was  the  severity  of  the  censorship.  La  Bruyere's 
saying,  that  it  was  difficult  for  a  Frenchman  of  his  time  to 

9  Journal  des  Savans,  1860,  p.  220. 
1  Histoire  de  Louvois,  iv.  28. 


in  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  351 

find  trustworthy  material  for  his  pen  upon  any  subject, 
applies  above  all  to  the  materials  of  history.  The  diaries  of 
Dangeau  and  Sourches  are  each  of  them  a  dry  collection  of 
facts,  and  abstain  from  all  expression  of  opinion.  The 
numerous  authors  who  took  refuge  abroad  knew  but  little, 
and  their  reports  were  coloured  by  party  spirit.  The  Duke  de 
Berwick  and  the  minister  Torcy,  whose  testimony  would  be 
very  welcome,  are  both  of  them  silent.  The  Abbe  Choisy 
has  nothing  of  importance  to  tell  us  beyond  the  fact  of  the 
secret  wedding  at  night.  In  the  memoirs  of  La  Fare,  the 
epicurean  of  the  Orleans  faction,  the  whole  of  the  state- 
ments with  regard  to  Madame  de  Maintenon  are  false. 
The  memoirs  of  Languet  de  Gergy  are  valuable  and  in- 
structive. Through  Madame  de  Maintenon' s  influence,  he 
filled  the  post  of  almoner  to  the  Duchess  of  Burgundy  be- 
tween the  years  1700  and  1715,  and  was  therefore  constantly 
in  the  presence  of  his  patroness,  and  in  frequent  commu- 
nication with  her,  through  her  became  Bishop  of  Soissons, 
and  died  as  Archbishop  of  Sens  in  1753.  He  was  one  of 
the  men  who  enjoyed  her  confidence,  and,  as  her  letters 
show,  received  from  her  many  commissions  as  to  church 
matters;  he  was  also  for  some  time  her  confessor.  We 
should  be  glad  to  forget  that  this  man  was  also  the  author  of 
such  a  book  as  the  famous  biography  of  the  nun  Alacoque  ; 
he  also  left  memoirs  which,  although  not  intended  to  be 
printed,  offer  a  picture  in  which  every  shadow  is  wanting. 
Nevertheless,  as  authorities  they  are  a  source  of  inestimable 
value,  for  not  only  does  he  speak  as  an  eye-witness  and  with 
the  intimate  knowledge  of  a  spiritual  counsellor,  but  he  had 
access  to  records,  since  lost,  proceeding  from  Madame  de 
Maintenon  herself,  or  made  use  of  by  her  in  her  own  memo- 
randa, and  his  statements  often  coincide  with  those  of 
Saint- Simon,  with  this  difference,  that  the  latter  was  fond 
of  putting  an  ugly  interpretation  upon  things  which  in 
Languet's  eyes  appear  quite  natural  and  commendable. 

The  reports  of  foreign  ambassadors,  Venetian  and  Ger- 
man, who  were  about  the  court,  are  likewise  worthy  of 


352  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

credit.  Foscarini  says  in  the  year  1683  that  Madame  de 
Maintenon  enjoys  the  highest  reputation  at  court  ;  is 
universally  esteemed,  and  lives  very  quietly  in  great 
retirement  ;  that  she  has  won  the  affection  of  the  king 
through  her  vivacity  and  the  refinement  of  her  mind, 
through  her  accommodating  spirit  and  tact  in  sympathi- 
sing with  the  feelings  of  others ;  that  the  high  favour  in 
which  she  stands  is  considered  a  matter  of  rejoicing,  be- 
cause it  is  believed  that  she  may  impart  to  the  king  some  of 
the  kindliness  and  amiability  of  her  own  nature.  Girolamo 
Yenier  makes  mention  in  a  few  .words  of  her  influence  over 
the  king  in  the  interests  of  peace  and  in  favour  of  religious 
institutions  (1688).  Piefcro  Venier  confirms  this  in  the 
year  1695.  He  thinks  the  principles  upon  which  she  acts 
to  be  the  best  and  fittest ;  that  her  influence  is  altogether 
beneficial,  and  that  she  lives  a  very  modest  and  retired  life. 
Erizzo,  finally,  in  1699,  calls  her  a  woman  of  remarkable 
intellect  and  sanctified  life,  who  is  very  far  from  misusing 
her  power  and  authority  in  any  way.2  Oddly  enough, 
none  of  these  men  seem  to  have  suspected  that  this  lady 
was  really  married  to  the 'king. 

A  memorandum3  drawn  up  for  the  future  King  of 
Prussia  by  Ezekiel  Spanheim,  a  German  diplomatist,  in  1690, 
is  less  favourable ;  yet  even  he  finds  no  particular  cause  for 
blame,  excepting  as  to  her  behaviour  in  the  persecution  of 
the  Protestants,  and  considers  her  marriage  with  the  king 
to  be  almost  a  certainty.  Count  Sinzendorf,  in  a  report 
destined  for  the  emperor  in  1701,  has  no  doubt  as  to  the 
marriage,  praises  her  '  indescribable  retirement'  and  absten- 
tion from  all  display,  but  shares  with  Saint- Simon  and  Elisa- 
beth Charlotte  the  suspicion  that  the  leading  motive  of  her 
policy  was  the  desire  to  have  herself  proclaimed  queen  ; 
whereupon  he  relates  a  foolish  story,  probably  imparted  to 
him  by  the  Duchess  of  Orleans,  to  the  effect  that  the  king 
was  dissuaded  from  doing  this  by  Fenelon,  whose  fall  was  a 

*  Belazioni  di  Francia,  ii.  363,  448,  519. 

8  In  Dohm's  Materialen  fur  Statistik,  1781,  vol.  iii. 


xn  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  853 

matter  of  revenge  on  her  part.    He  does  not  otherwise 
mention  a  single  trait  prejudicial  to  her.4 

Upon  the  whole  the  more  we  inquire  into  the  opinion 
of  eye-witnesses  and  contemporaries  the  more  we  are  im- 
pressed with  the  fact  that  those  who  judge  her  most  favour- 
ably are  the  best,  and  amongst  them  those  who  had  known 
her  longest  and  most  intimately.  Thus,  amongst  the 
women,  Madame  de  Sevigne ;  Madame  de  Miramon,  who 
was  revered  as  a  saint  and  who  begged  for  her  presence 
upon  her  deathbed;  the  Abbess  of  Fontevraud,  sister  of 
Madame  de  Montespan ;  the  Queen  of  England ;  Madame 
de  Dangeau,  Princess  of  Lowenstein,  who,  is  described  as 
both  beautiful  and  virtuous,  even  by  Saint- Simon ;  the 
Duchess  of  Lorraine,  otherwise  her  implacable  enemy. 
The  language  of  admiration  which  the  Princess  Orsini 
adopts  in  her  letters  to  her  is  evidently  not  flattery,  but 
the  expression  of  sincere  conviction.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  letters  addressed  to  her  by  Marshal  Villars.  The 
tone  of  deference  which  runs  through  Fenelon's  letters  to 
Madame  de  Maintenon  is  due  not  merely  to  her  position, 
but  to  her  personal  qualities. 

No  woman  in  history  has  been  more  loved  and  ad- 
mired, and  none  more  hated.  But  the  hatred  has  been 
invariably  produced  by  envy.  *  Her  position,'  says  Sevigne, 
'  is  unique  in  the  world  ;  there  has  never  been,  nor  ever 
will  be  again,  anything  like  it.'5  The  idol  of  France 
belonged  to  her  exclusively,  and  the  wishes  and  aspira- 
tion of  the  feminine  world  at  the  court  were  hence  once  for 
all  extinguished  in  a  country  where,  according  to  the  state- 
ment of  the  Duchess  of  Orleans,6  '  the  women  are  jealous 
of  their  husbands  more  from  ambition  than  from  love ; 
wishing  to  rule  over  all  and  to  make  all  things  subordinate 
to  them,  so  that  there  is  not  a  kitchen-maid  who  does  not 

4  Archivfiir  Kunde  Oesterr.  Geschichtsquellen,  xiii.  11. 

5  Lettres  (ed.  Mommerque,  1862),  vii.  289. 

8  Brief e  a.  d.  Jahre  1720  (Tubingen,  1879),  pp.  178,  209. 

A  A 


354  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

suppose  herself  to  be  intelligent  enough  to  govern  a 
kingdom.' 

Both  husband  and  wife,  so  closely  .united  in  unbroken 
harmony,  and  yet  so  widely  different  in  thought  and 
feeling,  reveal  something  to  us  of  their  nature  in  the 
course  of  their  writings :  Louis,  in  his  memoirs,  written, 
as  it  were,  before  the  mirror,  filled  with  naive  admiration 
of  his  own  reflection;  Francoise,  in  the  important  series 
of  her  letters,  to  which  many  have  recently  been  added, 
as  well  as  in  the  papers  and  notes  which  she  wrote  for 
Saint-Cyr.  Louis's  memoirs — the  genuine  production  of 
his  own  sentiments,  but  written  in  a  style  of  which  he 
himself  was  not  capable — were  in  all  probability  composed 
with  the  assistance  of  his  wife,  or  were  at  any  rate  revised 
by  her.  That  this  was  believed  to  be  the  case  is  reported 
by  the  Venetian  ambassador  ; 7  and  the  editor  of  the  memoirs 
in  1806  admits  the  co-operation  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  in 
certain  portions  of  them.  In  any  case  the  king  gave  them 
to  her  to  read.  Thus  she  drew  her  accurate  knowledge 
of  his  thoughts  and  aims  from  .his  writings,  as  well  as 
from  his  conversation.  The  discovery  on  her  part  fol- 
lowed as  a  matter  of  course  that  she  had — within  the 
limits,  at  least,  prescribed  to  her  by  her  director — espoused 
the  opinions  together  with  the  person  of  the  man  she  had 
married. 

The  letters  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  are  among  the 
best  that  French  literature  has  to  offer,  and,  although  differ- 
ing entirely  in  tone  and  purport  from  those  of  her  friend 
Madame  de  Sevigne,  are  worthy  of  comparison  with  them. 
Her  style  is  clear,  terse,  refined,  often  sententious ;  her 
business  letters  are  patterns  of  simplicity  and  pregnant 
brevity.  They  might  be  characterised  as  womanly  yet 
manly,  so  well  do  they  combine  the  warmth  and  depth  of 
womanly  feeling  with  the  strength  and  lucidity  of  a  mas- 
culine mind.  If  some  of  them,  especially  those  to  her 
brother,  who  was  far  inferior  to  her  in  moral  worth,  give  the 

7  Relazioni  (ed.  Barozzi  e  Berchet,  1865),  pp.  Ill,  364. 


Xit  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  355 

impression  of  a  certain  calculating  coldness  and  dry  utili- 
tarianism, this  is  the  exception  called  forth  by  the  charac- 
ter of  the  person  she  addresses  ;  most  of  them  touch  us 
by  the  warmth  and  natural  sincerity  of  feeling,  the  hearty 
human  kindness,  the  gentleness  and  forbearance,  displayed 
in  her  judgment  of  individuals,  the  absence  of  all  that 
comes  under  the  description  of  polite  tittle-tattle.  They 
are  not  free  from  an  occasional  hardness,  which  we  shall 
presently  explain;  but,  all  things  considered,  it  may  be 
asserted  that  they  are  the  reflection  of  a  noble,  excellent 
soul,  rather  above,  than  of,  its  time. 

The  prevalent  conception,  that  Fran9oise  d'Aubigne 
was  an  exceedingly  clever,  calm,  cold,  shrewd  woman  is 
to  a  great  extent  erroneous.  She  was  extremely  vivacious 
and  highly  sensitive  in  feeling,  possessed  by  an  impe- 
rative necessity  for  loving,  and  an  almost  passionate  long- 
ing to  commend  herself  to  others  by  the  services  and 
sacrifices  she  was  ready  to  perform  for  them.  She  had, 
she  relates,  as  a  young  girl,  such  an  ardent  love  for  her 
instructress,  the  nun  Celeste,  that,  when  she  was  dis- 
missed from  the  convent  (of  Niort),  she  prayed  to  God 
that  she  might  die,  so  intolerable  did  the  separation  from 
this  nun  appear  to  her.8 

Early  habits  of  piety  had  led  to  daily  self-examination 
and  sifting  of  conscience  ;  she  had  by  this  means  acquired 
unusual  control  over  her  senses,  as  well  as  over  her  feel- 
ings and  will.  She  was,  she  affirms,  by  nature  impatient, 
yet  during  the  forty  years  that  they  lived  together  she 
never  gave  the  king  any  proof  of  it,  although  she  often 
feared  she  should  break  down  before  him  from  sheer  exhaus- 
tion. In  these  characteristics  is  revealed  the  secret  of 
that  pre-eminence  in  the  art  of  education  to  which  she 
attained,  without  herself  having  been  a  mother — or  perhaps 
because  of  this.  For  she  possessed  in  the  highest  degree 
the  art  of  being  all  things  to  all  men,  of  understanding  and 

8  Entrcticn  stir  rtducation  dcs  fittes,  par  Mme.  de.  M.,  ed.  Lavall^e 
(1854),  p.  314. 


3o6  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  *ij 

sympathising  with  the  peculiarities  of  each  individual,  of 
advising,  awakening,  and  directing  consciences,  of  even 
making  herself  a  child  with  children,  so  that  she  be- 
came an  excellent  teacher,  and,  sensible  of  her  talent, 
exercised  it  readily  in  village  schools  such  as  those  of  Avon 
and  Fontainebleau. 

Personal  impressions,  as  Fenelon  remarked,  counted  for 
more  with  Louis  than  acknowledged  principles.  The  impres- 
sion which  Madame  Scarron  made  upon  him,  the  mixture 
of  personal  attraction,  admiration  of  her  power  of  mind,  and 
pleasure  in  her  conversation  which  he  experienced  in  her 
society  bound  him  to  her  with  an  ever-  strengthening  tie.  He 
became  aware  that  she  was  devoid  of  selfishness,  striving 
after  nothing,  asking  for  nothing,  careful  only  for  him,  for 
his  health  and  amusement,  and,  above  all,  for  the  welfare 
of  his  soul.  Her  piety  and  conscientiousness  made  her 
seem  to  him  as  a  guardian  angel  in  female  form,  ever  at  his 
side,  commissioned  to  counsel  and  to  warn,  to  cheer  and 
to  comfort  him.  The  hours  that  he  spent  with  her  were 
the  most  agreeable  in  the  day.  Distrusting  every  one  else, 
and  accustomed  to  solicitations  expressed  in  words  and 
sighs  and  glances  from  all  around,  it  was  with  her  only 
that  he  enjoyed  the  sweets  of  unrestrained  confidence  and 
felt  the  full  value  of  an  unselfish  love  devoid  of  self- 
interest.  For  the  first  time,  the  opportunity  had  been 
granted  to  him — who  until  then  had  seen  life  only  through 
the  incense-laden  atmosphere  of  the  court — of  learning 
from  the  lips  of  one  belonging  to  him  the  truth  and  reality 
of  things.  Such  a  friend  as  Henry  IV.  had  possessed,  a 
king  like  Louis  could  never  have ;  at  the  best  he  could 
only  have  an  intellectually  insignificant  favourite  like 
Villeroi. 

Now,  at  length,  Louis  had  obtained  that  which  hitherto 
he  had  never  enjoyed — a  peaceful,  unconstrained,  agreeable 
private  life,  the  intimacy  of  home,  in  which  he  could 
rest  from  the  endless  burden  of  having  to  play  a  part. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  357 

Even  adulation  and  flattery  end  by  becoming  wearisome, 
and  the  most  luxurious  monarch  must  at  times  long  for 
more  wholesome  entertainment,  and  for  an  interval  in 
which  he  may  lay  aside  the  yoke  of  etiquette — a  yoke  which 
deprives  himself,  as  well  as  the  princes,  princesses,  and 
courtiers,  of  the  free  use  of  their  hands  and  arms  and  of 
their  free  will,  and  transforms  even  pleasure  into  toil. 
Truly  he  himself  wore  with  fortitude  and  dignity 9  the  iron 
fetters  which  he  had  forged  for  himself,  whilst  his  wife 
experienced  to  the  full  the  torture  of  the  daily  constraint, 
and  feared  sometimes  that  she  must  sink  under  it,  although 
always  obliged  to  conceal  it  from  him. 

<  Never,'  says  Elisabeth  Charlotte,  '  was  a  young  and 
beautiful  favourite  so  worshipped  as  this  old  woman ;  so 
enamoured  is  the  great  man  of  his  treasure.'1  '  She  was,' 
says  the  duchess  in  another  place,  '  mistress  over  all 
his  affections  and  thoughts.'  It  is  a  matter  of  fact  that 
from  the  time  she  became  his,  no  other  woman  succeeded 
in  insinuating  herself  into  the  king's  favour,  nor  was  he 
ever  unfaithful  to  her,  although  he  continued  to  seek 
the  society  of  women  and  chose  to  be  accompanied  by 
ladies  upon  his  journeys.  Eoyal  gifts  and  favours  fell  to 
the  share  of  the  ladies  of  the  court  henceforth  chiefly 
through  her  interposition.  In  public  she  appeared  as  a 
private  person,  or  simply  as  a  lady  of  the  court,  claiming 
no  token  of  higher  rank ;  but  in  her  apartments  she 
was  forced  to  consent  to  princes  and  princesses  doing 
homage  to  her  as  to  a  queen,  waiting  upon  her  and  sur- 
rounding her  with  attentions,  divining  her  wants  and  vying 
with  one  another  in  satisfying  them.  The  homage  which 
was  thrust  upon  her  whenever  she  showed  herself  in  public, 
or  paid  a  visit,  induced  her  to  keep  as  much  as  possible 
in  the  background;  even  to  her  friends  she  found  it 

9  Upon  the  whole,  the  outbreaks  of  temper  and  cynicism,  which  Saint- 
Simon  reports,  may  be  considered  as  exceptional, 
1  lUnke,  Wtrtcc,  xiii.  171,  A.U.  169  9, 


358  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xu 

necessary,  as  she  expressed  it,  to  be  as  one  dead.  Yet  in 
her  own  apartments  she  could  wield  the  sceptre  with  as 
much  grace  as  dignity. 

The  craving  of  the  king  to  be  continually  in  the  company 
of  this  woman  of  his  choice  is  difficult  to  explain.  It  was 
as  though  some  subtle,  beneficent  influence  flowing  from  her 
communicated  itself  to  his  being;  as  though  her  glance, 
and  the  tone  of  her  voice,  calmed  and  refreshed  him.  In 
1698  Madame  de  Maintenon,  then  sixty-three  years  of  age, 
writes  that  the  king  comes  regularly  three  times  a  day  to 
her  apartment.  Soon  afterwards  she  laments  her  want  of 
time,  and  how  inaccessible  she  is  to  others,  as  the  king  is 
scarcely  ever  out  of  her  room,2  though  indeed,  as  she  re- 
marks, she  scarcely  ever  talks  to  him,  for  he  is  generally 
immersed  in  the  most  serious  political  business.  To  her 
no  small  inconvenience  he  had  his  writing-table  placed  close 
to  her  bed,  and  would  carry  on  his  work  there,  even  with 
his  ministers,  whilst  she  listened,  lying  in  bed.  Torcy  men- 
tions one  occasion  when,  during  a  discussion,  she  exhorted 
him  from  her  bed  to  follow  the  advice  of  the  minister.3  She 
was  even  obliged  to  accompany  him  during  a  campaign.  We 
may  therefore  well  believe  that  she  gradually  assimilated 
much  of  Louis's  way  of  thinking,  just  as  he,  on  the  other 
hand,  received  much  from  her.  We  are  reminded  of  the 
magic  ring  of  Fastrada,  which  cast  a  love-spell  about 
the  heart  of  Charles  the  Great,  and  which,  when  Turpin 
threw  it  into  the  fish-pond  at  Aix,  detained  the  king 
there  by  its  magic  power.  True  it  is  that  Louis  admired 
the  marquise  more  than  she  admired  him.  '  She  is  a  saint,' 
he  wrote;  'she  has  every  perfection,  and  more  intellect 
than  most  men.'  If  she  happened  to  be  present  at  his 
deliberations  with  the  ministers,  he  was  certain  to  ask, 
'  What  does  your  Wisdom  think  of  this  ?  How  does  this 
.strike  votre  solidite '? '  She,  on  the  other  hand,  told  her 
director  that  her  views  and  principles  were  so  much  at 

-  Corrcsp.  iv.  253. 

3  Journal  intdit.  (publ.  par  Masson,  1884),  p.  125. 


xii  OF  FEENCH  HISTORY  359 

variance  with,  those  of  the  king  that  her  situation  was  made 
much  more  difficult  thereby. 

Fran9oise  had  to  take  the  king  as  he  was ;  she  could 
neither  hope  nor  venture  to  dissuade  him  from  his 
delusion  that  royalty  was  divinely  inspired.  His  mind 
had  already  been  under  her  influence  for  twenty  years, 
when  in  the  memorial  addressed  to  his  grandson,  the 
King  of  Spain,  he  exhorted  him  never  to  decide  except  for 
himself,  because  if  his  intentions  were  good  and  he  gave 
no  heed  to  the  opinions  of  others  he  was  sure  of  the 
divine  illumination.  She  held  fast  to  the  resolution  to 
express  her  opinion  only  when  called  upon  to  do  so,  and 
this  was  in  keeping  with  her  own  inclination  ;  but,  as  time 
went  on,  her  opinion  was  more  and  more  frequently  asked, 
even  on  public  affairs,  and  the  divinely  inspired  king, 
after  deciding,  usually  discovered  that  his  Egeria  had 
thought  and  advised  exactly  in  accordance  with  the  will  of 
God.  Her  omnipotence,  about  which  Elisabeth  Charlotte, 
Saint- Simon,  and  the  foreign  ambassadors  have  so  much  to 
say,  consisted  mainly  in  that.  He  set  all  the  more  value  upon 
her  opinion,  even  on  public  business,  because  he  was  per- 
suaded that  in  his  long  daily  discussions  with  her  he  had 
put  her  through  a  course  of  instruction  and  had  initiated 
her  in  the  great  questions  and  aims  of  his  policy  and 
administration.  In  the  same  way  he  had,  as  he  believed, 
by  his  instructions  educated  his  ministers  to  become 
useful  men  of  business.  He  thus  waived  nothing  of  his 
own  dignity  when,  relying  upon  the  solidity  of  her  judg- 
ment— votre  soliditc  he  used  to  call  her — he  inquired  into 
her  views  and  agreed  with  them. 

Her  influence,  however,  was  powerless  to  make  any 
change  in  the  course  of  his  policy,  or  the  continuance  of 
the  war,  up  to  the  time  of  the  Peace  of  Eyswick.  When  she 
sighed  for  peace  she  was  informed  that  the  enemy  was 
obstinate,  and  that  hostilities  were  carried  on  for  the  use 
and  profit  of  the  Catholic  religion.  So  the  directors  of  her 
conscience  believed,  and  so  they  assured  her.  Her  confessor, 


360  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

Gobelin,  wrote  enthusiastic  letters  to  her  upon  the  subject, 
full  of  daring  hopes.  She,  meanwhile,  willingly  allowed 
herself  to  be  deceived  by  these  delusive  pictures;  what 
could  be  more  agreeable  or  elevating  than  the  consciousness 
of  being  the  loving  and  admiring  wife  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished hero  of  the  faith  of  that  era,  the  new  Louis  IX., 
the  chosen  warrior,  who  contended  for  the  welfare  and  ex- 
tension of  the  church  !  It  did  not  disturb  her  to  know 
that  this  champion  of  the  faith  and  of  the  church  was  in 
alliance  with  the  arch-enemy  of  Christendom,  and  support- 
ing the  Turkish  arms  in  the  invasion  of  Christian  countries 
in  the  East. 

It  is  scarcely  needful  to  observe  that  under  no  circum- 
stances and  at  no  period  of  the  more  than  thirty  years  that 
her  influence  lasted  could  she  have  ventured  to  call  in 
question  the  merits  of  unrestricted  royalty,  as  it  had  been 
planned  and  carried  out  under  the  rule  of  the  two  cardinals, 
and  systematically  developed  by  Louis.  The  question  might 
present  itself  to  her  mind  whether  such  a  system  could  be 
termed  Christian  ;  she  may  also  have  had  doubts  instilled 
into  her  by  Fenelon  during  the  period  of  their  intercourse. 
But  the  church  herself  had  created  the  system ;  her  bishops 
and  preachers  had  commended  and  sanctioned  it  in  the  pul- 
pit. She  knew  that  Bossuet,  the  foremost  teacher  of  the 
church  in  the  kingdom,  had  declared  that  this  condition  of 
self-glorification  and  absolutism  rested  upon  the  divine  order 
of  things,  and  was  the  old  and  permanent  constitution  of 
France.  Nor,  again,  could  she  have  dared  to  meddle  with  the 
system  of  arbitrary  imprisonment  by  royal  warrant,  although 
now  and  then,  in  a  few  cases,  she  succeeded  in  preventing 
a  sentence  of  imprisonment  or  banishment,  or  at  any  rate  in 
shortening  it.  The  pernicious  custom  of  the  sale  of  public 
offices  she  durst  not  call  in  question,  seeing  the  condition 
of  the  finances.  Nevertheless  there  remained  to  her  a 
large  and  comprehensive  sphere,  in  which  she  could  at  least 
attempt  to  soften  severities  and  to  obtain  a  milder  applica- 
,tion  of  coercive  measures ;  yet  not  infrequently  she  must 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  361 

have  been  met  with  the  remark  that  such  and  such  a  thing 
was  traditional,  that  it  had  always  been  so.  Since  the  king 
laid  considerable  stress  upon  her  judgment  of  persons,  and 
was  convinced  of  the  purity  of  her  intentions  as  well  as  of 
her  devotion  to  himself,  it  occasionally  happened  that  an 
important  office  was  filled  up  on  her  recommendation — not 
always  happily,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  case  of  the  honest 
but  incapable  minister  Chamillard.  At  a  later  date  she 
lamented  that  her  endeavours  to  bring  the  best  men,  such  as 
the  Due  de  Chevreuse  and  the  Due  de  Beauvilliers,  about 
the  king  had  ended  unfortunately  for  all  concerned.  Her 
efforts  often  failed  on  account  of  the  king's  old  aversion  for 
superiority,  whether  in  intellect,  science,  education,  or 
natural  gifts,  which  might  overshadow  him,  or  perchance 
expose  his  ignorance.  Least  of  all  could  she  find  fault 
with  the  king's  partiality  for  building,  which  had  now 
grown  to  be  a  passion.  Once,  at  a  moment  of  great 
financial  distress,  having  allowed  herself  to  make  some 
remonstrance  as  to  the  building  expenses  at  Marly,  when 
Versailles  already  had  cost  four  hundred  millions,  she 
experienced  an  unfriendly  rebuff. 

There  is  no  contradiction  in  saying  that  a  woman  to 
whom  homage  was  paid  as  to  a  queen,  and  whose  slightest 
gesture  was  instantly  obeyed,  nevertheless  lamented  the 
condition  of  slavery  in  which  she  lived.  The  Bishop  of 
Chartres,  in  writing  to  her,  says  by  way  of  consolation 
that  it  is  God's  will  that,  although  free-born,  she  should 
be  a  slave.  It  was  a  matter  of  course  that  Louis,  just 
because  he  rated  her  so  highly  and  trusted  her  so  implicitly, 
gradually  put  more  and  more  upon  her,  especially  things 
that  were  disagreeable  to  himself — those,  for  instance,  which 
concerned  the  female  portion  of  the  royal  family.  She  had 
to  look  after  the  princesses,  to  lecture  and  reprimand 
them  ;  and  these  ill-educated,  capricious  beings,  of  whom, 
as  she  says,  not  one  came  to  any  good,  were  not  seldom 
seen  to  come  from  her  apartment  weeping.  So  entirely 
.had  she  given  herself  up  to  the  king's  service  that  she  might 


362  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  XH 

well  declare  that  she  did  not  keep  back  from  him  one  moment 
of  her  life,  and  that  she  never  knew  until  ten  o'clock  at 
night  what  she  might  have  to  do  on  the  morrow.  Godet 
pointedly  recommended  her  to  exert  herself  in  entertain- 
ing and  cheering  the  king,  that  by  such  means  she  might 
obtain  a  more  favourable  hearing  on  serious  matters. 
He  wrote  to  her  to  the  effect  that  by  gaiety,  of  which  the 
king  was  so  fond,  he  must  be  prepared  for  truths  that 
were  distasteful  to  him.4  She  followed  this  advice  and 
invented  novel  forms  of  social  pastimes  ;  concerts, 
dances,  took  place  in  her  apartments,  whilst  she  herself, 
as  she  says,  was  deeply  sorrowful  at  heart  over  the  course 
of  events  and  the  condition  of  the  country ;  for  the  king, 
she  observes  in  one  of  her  letters,  desires  only  to  amuse 
himself  and  to  forget  everything.  Yet  a  time  came  when 
the  king,  ~bla.se,  over-satiated,  broken  in  health,  saddened 
by  political  and  family  misfortunes,  was  no  longer  capable 
of  amusement — inamusable,  she  says — and  yet  could  not  en- 
dure to  be  without  her  company.  Then,  when  this  monarch, 
who  of  all  men  in  his  time  had  been  the  most  admired 
and  feared,  spent  his  days  in  weeping  and  in  seeking 
comfort  and  encouragement  from  her,  it  required  all  her 
strength  of  mind  to  bear  up  under  the  burden  of  her  own 
grief  and  that  of  others,  and  not  to  sink  under  the  constant 
strain  put  upon  her.5  She  had  to  become  a  heroine  of 
patience,  forbearance,  and  comfort. 

4  '  Ayez  done  une  grande  confiance  ;  march ez  dans  la  joie  du  St.  Esprit 
en  la  repandant  sur  le  roi ;  car  il  a  besoin  de  gouter  la  douceur  et  la  liberte 
de  la  bonne  conscience.     II  regard  encore  trop  la  vertu  et  la  perfection  de 
son  etat,  par  ce  qu'il  y  a  de  plus  austere  et  de  plus  rebutant  pour  la  nature; 
quand  il  verra  la  personne  qu'il  aime  et  qu'il  estime  le  plus,  dans  une  joie 
et  une  liberte  d'esprit  continuelle,  dans  une  continuelle  innocence  et  dans 
un  amour  ardent  des  bonnes  oeuvres,  Dieu  lui  fera  la  grace  d'aspirer  au 
meme  bonheur.    La  femme  fidele  sanctifiera  1'homme  infidele,  dit  St.  Paul, 
combien  plus  le  mari  chretien.'      Lettres  de  V&veque,  de  Chartres  (1757),  p. 
173. 

5  '  Quand  le  roi  est  revenu  de  la  chasse,  il  vient  chez  moi ;  on  ferme  la 
porte  et  personne  n'entre  plus.     Me  voila  done  seule  avec  lui.    II  f aut  essuyer 
ses  chagrins,  s'il  en  a,  ses  tristesses,  ses  vapeurs ;  il  lui  prend  quelquefois 
des  pleurs  dont  il  n'est  pas  le  maiire,  ou  bien  il  se  trouve  incommode.    U 


XII 


OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  363 


Small  wonder  if  her  letters  are  full  of  lamentations. 
Though  standing  in  the  place  of  a  queen,  she  had  not  so 
much  liberty  as  the  wife  of  a  simple  citizen  ;  the  king  whom 
she  loved  was  often  her  heaviest  cross  ;  she  needed  repose  in 
the  feebleness  of  her  advancing  years,  but  was  compelled 
to  live  an  active  life.6  To  judge  by  her  letters,  the 
longing  for  death  seems  to  have  been  her  strongest  and 
most  persistent  feeling.7  From  an  exalted  idea  of  duty 
and  an  exaggerated  power  of  self-tormenting  she  some- 
times reproached  herself  for  still  wishing  to  be  loved, 
and  fearing  that  the  king  loved  and  valued  her  quite 
too  much.8  In  another  place  she  complains  that  under 
the  plea  of  conscience — her  director  had  imposed  this 
upon  her — she  was  too  much  occupied  with  her  health, 
and  that,  oppressed  by  the  weight  of  suffering  and  sorrow, 
her  senses  seemed  as  it  were  blunted.9  So  entirely  unique, 
and  (so  to  speak)  incongruous  a  position  demanded  a 
tension  of  mind  and  physical  exertion  beyond  her  power. 
She  complains  that  the  long  hours  of  standing  when  re- 
ceiving visits  of  ceremony  were  almost  unendurable  to  her 
—she  had  to  struggle  perpetually  against  nervous  attacks 
(vapeurs  was  then  the  term  for  what  was  later  called 
migraine).  This  grew  worse  as  the  years  wore  on.  She 
suffered  continually  from  feverish  attacks,  which  the 
king's  physician,  Fagon,  otherwise  her  devoted  admirer, 
called  '  fanciful '  because  in  reality  they  were  produced 
by  mental  excitement  and  distress  of  mind.  When 
fifty-five  years  of  age  she  was  already  so  ill  that  she 
believed  her  death  to  be  imminent.  But  she  resembled 
the  king  in  this  :  namely,  that  her  will  enabled  her  to  over- 
come physical  weakness  and  infirmity.  Her  bodily  suffer- 

n'a  point  de  conversation.  II  vient  quelque  ministre  qui  apporte  souvent  de 
mauvaises  nouvelles ;  le  roi  travaille.  Si  on  veut  que  je  sois  en  tiers  dans 
ce  conseil,  on  m'appelle ;  si  on  ne  veut  pas  de  moi,  je  me  retire  un  peu  plus 
loin,  et  c'est  la  on  je  place  quelquefois  mes  prieres  de  1'apres-midi.'  Lettres 
hist,  et  edif.  ii.  163. 

6  Lettres  de  M.  dc  Chartres  (Glasgow,  1756),  180. 

7  Idem  74.  «  Idem  73.  9  Idem  194. 


364  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

ings,  she  said,  she  could  find  means  to  endure,  if  only  she 
might  lead  a  life  in  keeping  with  her  age  ;  but  continual 
change  of  place  obliged  her  to  live  as  if  she  were  a  woman 
of  twenty.  The  king,  thinking  only  of  himself,  did  not  see 
this. 

Madame  de  Maintenon  thought  it  her  vocation,  and 
one  of  the  duties  laid  upon  her  by  the  king,  to  maintain  or 
restore  harmony  and  peace  amongst  the  numerous  members 
of  the  royal  family.  She  developed  in  the  performance  of 
this  task  that  fine  womanly  tact  of  which  she  was  mistress  ; 
no  one  had  studied  more  carefully  the  human,  especially 
the  female  heart,  in  all  its  recesses.  Disputes  of  every 
kind  were  rife  in  this  circle ;  almost  all  the  children, 
nephews,  and  cousins  of  the  king  had  been  badly  brought 
up  by  Louis's  fault,  and,  the  king's  brother  at  the  head 
of  them,  set  an  example  of  serious  excesses  and  even 
of  shameful  vices.  She  has  recorded  what  a  burden  it  was 
to  her  to  have  to  entertain  these  royal  personages,  who 
paid  her  interminable  visits  merely  for  the  sake  of  dis- 
traction, and,  blunted  and  worn  out  by  dissipation,  took  no 
real  interest  in  anything. 

As  the  king  led  a  wandering  life,  moving  from  one  royal 
residence  to  another — Versailles,  Marly,  Clagny,  Trianon, 
Fontainebleau — his  wife  was  obliged  to  accompany  him 
everywhere,  and  often  to  inhabit  unhealthy  rooms  which  had 
been  but  a  short  time  completed.  She  complains  that  in  the 
construction  of  them  more  attention  had  been  paid  to  archi- 
tectural effect  than  to  making  them  habitable.  The  conse- 
quence to  her  was  increasing  ill-health,  and  it  is  astonishing 
that,  in  spite  of  her  repeated  attacks  of  fever,  she  should 
have  lived  to  so  great  an  age.  '  We  shall  perish  for  the 
sake  of  symmetry/  she  once  wrote,  not  without  bitterness. 
The  king's  love  for  her  was  sincere,  but  in  his  selfish  want 
of  consideration  he  paid  no  attention  to  such  things,  and 
she  was  afraid  of  being  troublesome  to  him. 

Besides  all,  there  was  the  Sisyphus-work  of  labouring  to 
satisfy  the  insatiable  thirst  for  amusement  and  enjoyment 


XTI  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  365 

of  the  princes  and  princesses  of  an  idle  court.  She  knew 
well  by  experience  that  these  pleasures  fly  faster  the 
more  eagerly  they  are  pursued,  and  leave  only  weariness 
and  vexation  behind  them.1  She  could  not,  however, 
entirely  withdraw  from  them,  but  was  forced  to  take  part 
in  them  personally,  and  to  be  continually  inventing  some- 
thing new  because  the  king  wished  it. 

The  instinct  to  help  and  to  benefit  others  was  strong 
within  her.  In  the  village  of  Avon  she  taught  the 
peasant  children  their  catechism,  and  looked  after  the  sick. 
As  she  had  made  a  rule  to  herself  not  to  ask  the  king  for 
money,  she  was  often  compelled  to  limit  her  small  gifts, 
or  to  suspend  them  till  she  again  had  a  sum  of  money 
at  her  disposal.  Since  the  king  had  designedly  reduced 
the  nobles  to  poverty,  and  nevertheless  obliged  those  whom 
he  had  attracted  to  court  to  be  lavish  in  their  expenditure, 
he,  whose  system  of  finance  had  brought  the  whole  riches 
of  the  country  into  his  own  hands,  was  obliged  to  assist 
the  feudal  lords,  now  transformed  into  needy  courtiers, 
by  frequent  donations  in  money,  and  by  allowances. 
In  Dangeau's  and  Sourches'  diaries,  numbers  of  these 
presents  are  specified,  many  of  them  amounting  week  by 
week  to  50,000,  or  even  to  100,000  livres.  That  Madame 
de  Maintenon  should  be  solicited  to  present  petitions 
from  men,  and  yet  more  from  women,  was  a  matter 
of  course  in  her  position,  and  with  her  reputed  omnipo- 
tence. As  all  donations  were  mere  acts  of  grace,  a 
refusal  amounted  to  disgrace,  and  became  consequently  a 
double  mortification.  The  king  was  indifferent  to  such 
grievances,  but  they  were  most  painful  to  his  wife,  and  a 
never-ending  source  of  vexation  and  enmity.  She  took 
pains  in  the  selection  of  candidates  to  apply  the  standard 

1  '  J'ai  passe  le  temps  de  Fontainebleau  dans  une  grande  solitude,  dont  je 
me  suis  tres-bien  trouvee  ;  je  la  veux  continuer  ici.  Je  n'ai  nulle  raison  de 
me  montrer,  et  j'en  ai  mille  pour  me  cacher;  je  suis  vieille,  sourde,  souvent 
triste,  malade,  ennuyee  du  monde,  connaissant  trop  les  courtisans ;  je  n'ai 
plus  ce  qui  m'interessait  a  tout,  qui  m'est  devenu  indifferent,  except^  ce  qui 
regarde  la  personne  du  roi  et  le  bien  de  son  etat.'  Lettrcs  de  Mine,  de  M.  a 
la  Pr.  des  Ursins,  ii.  320. 


866  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

of  moral  behaviour,  and  since  the  yearly  sums  available 
for  donations  in  money  progressively  diminished,  owing 
to  the  continually  increasing  outlay  consequent  upon 
the  prolongation  of  the  war,  the  crowd  of  malcontents  pro- 
portionately increased,  causing  invective  and  slander  to  be 
heaped  upon  her,  who  might  infallibly,  as  they  supposed, 
have  obtained  what  was  wanted  from  the  king,  had  she  only 
chosen  to  make  the  request  in  earnest.  The  echo  of  these 
murmurings  is  perceptible  in  the  letters  of  Saint- Simon  and 
of  the  Duchess  of  Orleans.  Madame  de  Maintenon  herself 
said  that  nothing  could  be  sadder  than  to  be  always  having 
to  say  '  No  '  to  persons  whom  one  would  willingly  serve  ; 
in  the  Valley  of  Jehosaphat  she  would  be  fairly  judged. 
She  thought  little  of  herself  and  her  future  as  far  as  money 
matters  were  concerned  ;  so  little,  indeed,  that  she  had  not 
even  secured  for  herself  a  jointure.  '  What  will  become 
of  her  ? '  asked  Louis  on  his  deathbed,  '  for  she  has 
literally  nothing.'  Yet  something  she  had :  an  asylum  in 
Saint-Cyr,  and  the  thought  of  that  institution  which  had 
grown  so  dear  to  her,  the  hope  of  ending  her  days  there 
far  from  the  bustle  of  the  world,  far  from  the  intrigues 
and  wickedness  of  a  corrupt  court,  amongst  her  beloved 
daughters,  who,  as  she  said,  were  pure  and  good  as  angels ; 
this  it  was  that  sustained  her  in  the  latter  years  of  care 
and  sorrow,  and  amid  increasing  infirmities. 

Madame  de  Maintenon  was  fully  aware  that  lampoons 
upon  her,  lies  and  calumniations,  derisive  ballads,  and  such 
like,  daily  sprang  up  in  Paris  and  Versailles  like  mushrooms 
from  the  ground.  But  she  calmly  resigned  herself  to  the 
inevitable ;  '  We  live  here  upon  slander,'2  she  once  said  ;  and 
again,  '  We  are  accustomed  to  live  upon  poison.'  She  knew 
also  that  it  was  her  inevitable  destiny  to  share  in  the  gene- 
ral hatred  which  her  royal  husband's  system  of  government 
had  drawn  down  upon  him  with  accumulating  force  since 
her  union  with  him  ;  the  people  could  see  her  power  but 
could  not  perceive  its  limits,  nor  the  helplessness  with 
2  'Nous  vivons  ici  d'injures.'  Lsttres  hist,  et  &dif.  (1856),  ii.  211. 


XTI  OF  FKENCH  HISTORY  367 

which  she   sorrowfully   contemplated  the   diseases  of  the 
state. 

As  if  to  enhance  the  cares  and  burdens  of  her  life, 
the  exiled  King  James  II.  of  England  and  his  consort 
Mary  settled  in  her  neighbourhood  in  1688.  Madame 
de  Maintenon  soon  won  the  confidence  of  the  latter,  a  prin- 
cess of  Modena,  who  claimed  her  intervention  in  all  her 
affairs  and  troubles.  The  two  women  soon  became  (yet 
not  to  the  advantage  of  France)  the  warmest  friends,  so 
that,  as  Madame  de  Maintenon  says,  she  had  sometimes 
to  receive  two  courts,  the  English  and  the  French,  together 
in  her  apartments.  Mary  wrote  to  her,  '  We  confide  in 
you  in  all  things.'  The  result  was  that  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon  persuaded  Louis,  at  a  highly  critical  moment,  by  an 
act  of  perjury,  to  proclaim  and  acknowledge  the  Pretender, 
James  III.,  as  King  of  England,  a  step  which  at  once  had 
the  effect  of  rousing  the  whole  English  nation  to  energetic 
participation  in  the  preparations  for  the  War  of  the  Spanish 
Succession,  and  entailed  the  most  injurious  consequences 
upon  the  French  King  and  his  people. 

The  piety  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  did  not  in  any  way 
interfere  with  her  social  charm ;  she  was  as  serene  and 
cheerful  in  her  days  of  health  as  she  was  courteous,  modest, 
and  obliging,  and  so  found  a  welcome  in  the  most  exclusive 
circles,  winning  both  men  and  women  by  her  amiability. 
Withal,  she  was  most  strict  in  her  own  conduct,  and,  by  her 
simple  yet  dignified  deportment,  understood  how  to  repel  all 
undue  familiarity  and  to  maintain  a  spotless  reputation.  In 
after  days  she  related  to  her  pupils  at  Saint-Cyr  that  what 
preserved  her  from  going  wrong  was  not  so  much  piety,  as 
the  ambition,  the  passionate  desire,  to  be  highly  esteemed  by 
every  one,  and  to  be  blameless  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  She 
had  never  known  any  one  who  approached  her  in  this  qua- 
lity. This  thirst  for  recognition,  praise,  and  sympathy, 
remained  to  the  end  an  ineradicable  feature  of  her  character, 
which  she  herself  summed  up  in  the  expression  that  she 


868  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

was  a  '  glorieuse.'  Nevertheless  in  the  end  she  sacrificed  one 
ambition  to  another  by  voluntarily  accepting  her  ambiguous 
position  before  the  world,  thus  exposing  herself  to  the 
evil  suspicions  of  many  persons.  This,  she  was  assured, 
was  a  sacrifice  imposed  upon  her  by  a  higher  duty  ;  it  was 
made  with  the  sorest  repugnance,  but  she  never  regretted 
it. 

But  Madame  de  Maintenon  aimed  at  a  higher  degree 
of  piety  than  was  customary  in  her  day.  A  distinction 
was  then  made  between  piety  and  devotion.  The  great 
mass  of  pretenders  to  piety  contented  themselves  with  out- 
ward obedience  to  the  precepts  of  the  church  and  with  the 
observance  of  the  usual  religious  ceremonies.  The  '  devout ' 
desired  to  take  religion  seriously  ;  it  was  to  be  the  rule  and 
supreme  motive  of  their  whole  life.  Every  one  in  Versailles 
who  approached  the  king  must  have  a  confessor,  and  Louis 
insisted  on  knowing  from  all,  who  in  any  way  attracted 
his  notice,  to  whom  they  went  to  confession.  The  merely 
pious  used  frequently  to  change,  but  the  devout  kept  to 
their  original  choice,  and  had  also  a  director,  who,  being 
credited  with  special  experience  in  the  art  of  directing 
souls,  gave  general  instructions  as  to  behaviour,  advice  as 
to  ascetic  observances,  prescribed  and  conducted  special 
religious  exercises,  and  was  appealed  to  in  difficult  cases 
of  conscience.  Men  only  exceptionally  had  a  director, 
but  women  frequently,  and  he  was  usually  the  man  upon 
whom  they  bestowed  the  fullest  confidence  and  to  whom  they 
yielded  the  most  implicit  obedience,  often  far  too  much  at 
the  expense  of  the  husband's  rights,  for  blind  submission 
and  complete  renunciation  of  their  own  judgment  was 
deemed  essential  under  the  circumstances.  Madame  de 
Maintenon  had  been  taught  to  regard  obedience  as  the 
highest  virtue  of  the  spiritual  life,  and  every  work,  however 
small  and  insignificant  in  itself,  as  meritorious  and  holy 
if  performed  in  the  spirit  of  submission. 

The  marquise  had  bestowed  her  full  confidence  upon  the 
Sulpicians,  an  order  of  priests  recently  founded,  without 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  869 

monastic  vows,  and  devoting  themselves  principally  to  the 
education  of  the  clergy.  These  men  sought  to  assume  an 
intermediate  position  in  the  church  controversies  of  the 
day.  Like  the  Jesuits,  they  were  the  opponents  of  all  who 
were  suspected  of  any  leaning  towards  Jansenism,  advo- 
cating unquestioning  obedience  to  the  papal  chair  and  its 
decrees,  but  disapproving  of  Jesuitic  casuistry  and  the 
system  of  penance.  The  fact  that  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon  joined  herself  to  them  and  shared  their  views  to 
the  extent  that  in  her  last  years  she  still  called  herself 
a  '  complete  Sulpician,' 3  and  that  she  consequently 
became  their  protectress  and  advocate  with  the  king, 
has  exercised  an  important  influence  npon  the  history  of 
France. 

Godet  des  Marais  was  the  priest  whom  she  chose  for  her 
director.  He  retained  the  post  for  thirty  years,  even  after 
that,  through  her  influence,  he  became  Bishop  of  Chartres, 
and  until  his  death  in  1709,  and  from  this  circumstance  he 
became,  next  to  the  royal  confessor,  the  most  influential 
man  in  the  Gallican  Church,  and  the  most  powerful  of  the 
French  bishops,  without,  however,  misusing  his  power. 
She  herself  said  that  without  her  director  she  would  not  be 
able  to  exist.4  He  was  to  her  the  personification  of  her  con- 
science ;  he  shared  the  burden  of  responsibility  in  a  position 
full  of  difficulties  and  temptations,  and  pointed  out  to  her 
exactly  what  she  should  do  or  leave  undone,  and  how,  in 
this  or  that  situation,  she  should  conduct  herself.  So  long, 
she  says,  as  she  had  acted  upon  her  own  choice,  she  had 
been  continually  afraid  of  doing  now  too  little,  and  now  too 
much,  or  of  not  doing  the  right  thing  at  all.  But  at  last, 
in  obeying  her  director,  she  had  found  peace.  Her  pupil  and 
friend,  Mademoiselle  d'Aumale,  tells  us  that  it  often  filled 

3  Lettres  hist,  et  isdif.  i.  350  ff. 

4  '  Grace  a  Dieu,  j'ai  un  directeur  de  bon  esprit,  et  qui  me  decide  de  gros 
en  gros  ce  que  j'ai  a  faire,  et  quand  une  fois  il  m'a  dit  ce  que  je  puis  faire 
en  surete  de  conscience,  ou  ce  que  je  dois  eviter,  je  m'en  tiens  a  sa  decision ; 
autrement  je  ne  vivrais  pas,  et  j'aurais  des  peines  infinies.'     Lettres  hist, 
et  edif.  ii.  276. 

B   B 


870:  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

her  with  confusion  and  astonishment  to  find  Madame  de 
Maintenon  consulting  her  director  in  perfectly  simple  things 
upon  which  nobody  could  feel  uncertain.  But  it  was  the 
merit  of  obedience  that  she  sought.  She  sent  him  month  by 
month  a  report  of  the  state  of  her  soul,  of  her  temptations, 
and  her  spiritual  joys  and  sorrows.  We  gain  a  knowledge 
of  these  reports  (redditions)  from  the  answers  to  them,  con- 
veying comfort  and  encouragement.  She  is  evidently  most 
conscientious,  unsparing,  and  searching  in  her  self-exami- 
nations. She  found  the  numerous  claims  and  difficulties  of 
her  situation  an  overwhelming  burden ;  she  is  often  at  her 
wits'  end  how  to  cope  with  the  whirl  and  press  of  the  mul- 
tifarious occupations  into  which  she  is  drawn,  and  upon 
which  she  is  expected  to  give  an  opinion,  however  strange 
they  may  be  to  her.  She  ought,  Godet  writes  to  her,  to 
be  at  court  the  light  of  the  world  and  the  salt  of  the  earth ; 
she  must  be  the  stay  and  comfort  of  the  church,  God  has 
committed  into  her  hand  the  welfare  of  the  state  and  of 
the  church,  and  the  spiritual  well-being  of  a  great  king ; 
she  is  the  harbour  of  refuge,  and  the  guardian  angel  of  the 
monarch;  the  king  has  himself  entrusted  her  with  the 
treasures  of  his  kingdom.  Godet  winds  up  with  the  assu- 
rance that  it  is  her  mission  to  reform  the  world.  Parallel 
with  this  runs  the  exhortation,  oft  repeated,  to  continue 
under  the  yoke  of  obedience,  especially  to  the  priesthood, 
and  not  to  allow  the  king's  zeal  for  the  extirpation  of  Pro- 
testantism and  Jansenism  to  grow  cold.  In  his  anxiety  to 
console  and  encourage  her,  he  touches  the  borders  of  flat- 
tery, and  even  now  and  then  oversteps  them  in  the  emphatic 
recognition  of  her  virtues,  of  the  blameless  purity  of  her 
life,  and  in  the  certainty  of  her  future  salvation.  She  her- 
self deprecatingly  represents  to  him  that  his  praises  foster 
her  self-love.  Thereupon  he  assures  her  that  she  has  en- 
tirely overcome  and  laid  aside  pride  and  vanity,  whilst  all 
the  while  she  is  aware  of  the  contrary.  He  sets  before  her 
that  it  is  under  his  direction  that  she  has  arrived  at  what 
she  is.  We  are  reminded  of  Praxiteles,  who,  in  the  image 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  871 

before  which  he  knelt,  worshipped  the  work  of  his  own 
hands. 

Next  to  Godet,  another  man,  peculiarly  fitted  to  he  a 
director  and  religious  guide  of  men,  exercised  great  influ- 
ence over  Madame  de  Maintenon  for  some  years.  This 
was  Fenelon,  whose  great  qualities  she  had  early  recog- 
nised, and  whom  she  had  attracted  to  the  court.  Partly 
owing  to  her  advice  he  had  been  nominated  to  the  post  of 
tutor  to  the  prince  and  heir  to  the  throne,  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy.  Like  Godet,  Fenelon  belonged  to  the  school 
of  St.  Sulpice,  and  was  his  intimate  friend,  but  far  superior 
to  him  in  intellect.  To  him  also  the  marquise  opened 
herself  without  reserve,  beseeching  him  to  enlighten  her 
as  to  her  faults,  and  the  true  remedies  for  them.  His 
answers 5  give  some  insight  into  the  relative  position  and 
dispositions  of  the  three  individuals  concerned.  Living 
close  to  her,  and  having  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
her  by  constant  intercourse,  his  remarks  upon  her,  like 
those  of  her  detractors  Saint- Simon  and  the  Palatinate 
princes,  carry  great  weight,  although,  unlike  the  comforting 
and  flattering  Godet,  he  takes  her  severely  and  seriously  to 
task,  and  is  even  too  exorbitant  in  the  demands  which  he 
makes  upon  her.  She  is  too  cold  and  dry  towards  persons 
who  are  distasteful  to  her  ;  is  still,  without  being  aware  of 
it,  '  glorieuse ; '  too  sensitive  to  everything  that  touches  her 
vanity ;  she  sets  too  great  value  upon  the  esteem  and  appro- 
bation of  the  well-disposed,  and  upon  the  consciousness  of 
her  own  virtue.  In  short,  Self  is  still  with  her  an  unbroken 
idol.  He  admits  at  the  same  time  that  her  piety  is  genu- 
ine ;  that  she  has  never  taken  part  in  the  wickedness  of 
the  world ;  has  long  since  abjured  its  errors,  and  that  she  is 
universally  credited  with  a  sincere  love  of  goodness,  although 
men  reproach  her  for  intolerance  with  their  faults.  Her 
mind  is  better  qualified  to  judge  in  public  affairs  than  she 
herself  supposes  ;  she  ought  not,  indeed,  to  interfere  in 
politics,  but  to  study  them,  and  carefully  and  prudently  to 

5  Correspondance-  de  Ftiielon  (1827),  v.  470  ff. 

B    B   2 


37 '2  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

use  her  influence  with  the  king  according  to  the  opportu- 
nities which  Providence  has  granted  her.  She  ought,  he 
says,  systematically  to  control  the  king,  since  he  would  have 
her  do  so ;  to  rule  him,  as  he  wishes  to  be  ruled.  She 
ought,  at  the  same  time,  to  seek  out  the  most  able  men  in 
all  professions,  and  prepare  the  way  for  them  to  office ;  to 
protect  the  king  from  mischievous  influences,  to  stand  upon 
the  alert,  like  a  watchman  in  Israel,  and,  in  short,  to  do 
more  than  the  most  experienced  statesman  could  have  done. 
But  to  the  burden  which  he  heaps  upon  her  he  adds  yet 
another,  still  heavier :  she,  who  from  her  natural  vivacity 
and  sensibility  strongly  felt  the  need  of  female  friendship, 
must  forego  this  natural  affection  and  the  desire  of  her 
heart,  since  it  is  but  a  refined  self-love,  and  therefore  of  the 
devil.  She  must  devote  herself  instead  to  the  '  pure  love  ' 
of  God.  Thus  he  wrote  in  1690.  It  was  premonitory  of 
that  which  she  was  destined  to  hear  from  him  and  to  read 
in  his  writings  six  years  later,  when  the  dispute  broke  out 
between  Fenelon  and  Bossuet  upon  '  pure  love.' 

We  must  here  make  some  mention  of  a  memorial  com- 
posed four  years  later  by  Fenelon  (1694),  because  it  enables 
us  to  draw  conclusions  as  to  the  way  in  which  in  her  inner- 
most heart  she  regarded  the  king's  method  of  government 
and  the  fruits  which  it  bore.  It  is  the  famous  letter  which 
in  1694  Fenelon  addressed  anonymously  to  the  king  with 
the  object  of  moving  him,  if  possible,  to  reflection,  self- 
knowledge,  and  conversion.6  Fenelon  sets  before  him  that 
hitherto  his  reign  has  been  one  long  series  of  unjust  wars 
carried  on  from  ambition,  avarice,  and  the  desire  for  fame. 

6  Kanke  (Wcrkc,  xi.  74)  doubts  its  authenticity  on  the  ground  that 
Fenelon  could  not  have  said  that  he  was  unknown  to  the  king.  Yet  he  could 
say  so  with  perfect  truth,  since  the  king  at  that  time  knew  him  only  by  name, 
not  personally.  He  had  only  one  audience  of  the  king,  and  that,  obtained 
through  Madame  de  Maintenon,  took  place  after  the  affair  of  the  letter. 
See  on  this  subject  the  pamphlet,  La  France  Catholique  (1825),  ii.  194.  Any 
one  acquainted  with  Fenelon's  letters  and  political  writings  will  easily  recog- 
nise his  style  in  this  letter ;  its  authenticity  is  also  generally  accepted  in 
France.  Ranke  was  unaware  of  the  testimony  to  it  in  the  letters  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  373 

His  faithlessness  prolonged  these  wars  indefinitely  because 
the  allied  powers,  convinced  that  Louis  would  forthwith 
violate  the  terms  of  peace,  preferred  the  risk  of  continu- 
ing the  war.  France,  utterly  exhausted,  resembled  a  great 
hospital  devoid  of  comfort  and  of  the  necessaries  of  life ; 
the  king  had  ruined  the  nation  to  maintain  his  court  in 
monstrous  and  unwholesome  luxury,  and  by  making  him- 
self the  sole  possessor  of  wealth,  had  surrounded  himself 
with  hosts  of  murmuring  beggars.  His  greed  of  fame  had 
blinded  him ;  he  was  heedless  of  the  decrease  in  the  popu- 
lation brought  about  by  misery,  hunger,  and  epidemics, 
and  of  the  threatenings  of  rebellion.  His  ministers,  hard, 
arrogant,  and  dishonest,  who  left  to  him  merely  the  sem- 
blance of  autocracy,  suppressed  every  outburst  of  violence. 
His  religion  consisted  of  fear  and  superstition.  After  a 
sharp  criticism  of  the  king's  confessor  (La  Chaise),  whom 
from  a  cloistered  priest  he  had  made  a  minister,  and  to 
whom  was  committed  the  entire  disposal  of  church  patro- 
nage, the  marquise  and  the  Due  de  Beauvilliers  are  likewise 
blamed  for  weakness  and  timidity  because,  possessing  the 
king's  confidence,  it  was  their  business  to  have  opened  his 
eyes.  This  letter,  which  Fenelon  managed  secretly  to  con- 
vey into  the  king's  hand  through  a  friend,  probably  the 
Due  de  Chevreuse,  was  communicated  by  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  who  appears  to  have  received  it  from  the  king, 
to  the  Archbishop  De  Noailles,  with  the  remark  that  it  was 
well  written  (elle  est  Men  faitc)  but  that  Louis  could  not  be 
converted  by  such  truths;  they  only  embittered  or  har- 
dened him;  therefore  the  letter  was  too  severe.  She 
appears  to  have  had  a  suspicion  as  to  the  authorship,  for 
she  inquires  of  de  Noailles  whether  he  did  not  recognise  the 
style.  Severe,  but  true !— truly  an  important  confession 
from  her  mouth,  and  a  confession,  too,  of  her  powerlessness 
in  the  most  weighty  matters.  It  exonerates  her  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  from  blame,  for  as  a  wife  she  was  bound  to  sub- 
mit and  to  witness  in  silence  much  that  she  disapproved  of 
But  by  the  light  of  this  letter  we  measure  the  intensity  of 


:874  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

the  longing  which  she  so  often  expresses  for  flight  and 
release,  and  the  longing,  too,  for  death,  in  spite  of  the  sin- 
cere love  with  which  she  devoted  herself  to  her  husband. 
Scarcely  anything  could  have  been  more  disheartening  and 
melancholy  than  that,  after  ten  years  of  influence  based 
upon  the  closest  and  most  intimate  ties,  the  condition  of 
France  and  the  spirit  of  the  government  should  present 
itself  to  the  eyes  of  the  observer  in  gloomier  colours  than 
ever.  If,  as  is  probable,  she  guessed  the  author,  she  must 
pjlso  have  known  that  his  friends,  the  Due  de  Chevreuse  and 
Due  de  Beauvilliers,  two  men  whom  she  herself  esteemed 
highly  and  had  brought  into  the  king's  immediate  circle, 
were  of  the  same  way  of  thinking. 

The  man  who  could  say  such  things  to  Madame  de 
Maintenon  was  clearly  not  fitted  to  remain  the  guide  of  her 
conscience  ;  he  would  have  driven  her  to  despair.  At  a 
later  period  she  remarked  that  she  regarded  it  as  a  token 
of  the  gracious  interposition  of  Providence,  that  she  should 
have  preferred  the  outwardly  repulsive  Godet  to  the  bril- 
liant and  attractive  Fenelon  with  his  high  flight  of  intellect, 
for  indubitably  he  would  have  entangled  her  in  the  errors  of 
mysticism.  Godet  fully  atoned  in  other  ways  for  his  out- 
ward deficiencies.  He  appeared  to  her,  and  not  to  her  only, 
to  be  a  saint  upon  earth,  and  she  was  in  the  habit  of  so 
describing  him.  He  understood  so  well,  moreover,  how 
to  offer  her  comfort  and  consolation ;  he  reassured  her  as 
to  the  reality  of  her  piety  and  the  certainty  of  her  future 
salvation ;  he  firmly  believed  that  she  was  an  instrument 
especially  chosen  and  sanctified  by  the  grace  of  God,  and 
that  her  union  with  Louis  was  a  miracle  brought  about  by 
divine  interposition.  He  also  discovered  in  the  king  besides 
so  many  excellent  qualities,  vigorous  faith,  wisdom,  and 
rectitude — things  of  which  Fenelon  could  perceive  nothing 
or  saw  only  the  reverse.  Her  heart  willingly  believed  him, 
even  if  her  head  doubted.  It  was  balm  to  her  when  Godet 
said  that  the  king  loved  his  people,  although  she  must 
have  daily  seen  how  this  love,  belied  by  actions,  expended 


xii  OF  FKENCH  HISTORY  375 

itself  in  empty  wishes.  To  Godet  she  consequently  clung 
submissively  during  his  lifetime,  holding  fast  to  his  pre- 
cepts and  opinions  as  to  infallible  laws,  and  after  his  death 
(1709)  giving  her  conscience  into  the  keeping  of  the  men 
whom  he  had  recommended,  Bissy  and  La  Chetardie.  The 
former  became,  through  her,  Bossuet's  successor  at  Meaux 
and  a  cardinal ;  the  latter  she  would  willingly  have  made 
the  king's  confessor  after  the  death  of  La  Chaise,  but  he 
declined,  and  contented  himself  with  being  hers. 

The  outbreak  of  the  Quietist  controversy  led  to  a  com- 
plete estrangement  between   Madame   de  Maintenon  and 
Fenelon — notwithstanding  that  the  latter  owed  to  her  his 
elevation  to  the  see  of  Cambrai — and  caused  her  the  bitterest 
grief,  possibly  the  deepest  of  all  her  life.      Her  conduct 
towards  Fenelon  and  the  ecstatic  prophetess  Madame  de 
Guyon  is  much  criticised,  even  at  the  present  day.7    With 
respect  to  Fenelon,  no  ground  for  reproach  is  discoverable ; 
she  may  be  said,  on  the  contrary,  to  have  used  much  con- 
scientious prudence  and  to  have  acted  from  the  purest  mo- 
tives, and  with  all  possible  forbearance  towards  her  friend. 
She  did  all  in  her  power  to  avert  and  to  mitigate  the  evil 
consequences  of  his  imprudent  publication.     She  held  long 
discussions  with  both  Fenelon  and  Bossuet ;  she  read  with 
the  most  careful  attention  the  publication  which  had  been 
so  generally  condemned;    Fenelon  himself  left  no  means 
untried   to  win    her  to  his  opinions,  but   in   vain.      She 
trembled  for  Saint-Cyr,  where  Madame  de  Guyon,  whom 
Fenelon  had  taken  under  his  protection,  had  already  initia- 
ted some  of  the  nuns  in  her  Quietist  doctrines.8     She  could 
not  familiarise  herself  with  the  idea  of  a  pure,  wholly  pas- 
sive love,  renouncing  every  exercise  of  virtue,  with  a  state 
in  which  the  soul,  detached  from  or  unconscious  of  discri- 

J  Besides  Sainte-Beuve,  Guerrier  has  also  lately  (Mad.  Guyon.     Pari 
1881)  placed  the  conduct  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  in  an  unfavourable  light 
and  has  again  made  use  of  the  fictions  of  La  Beaumelle,  although  in  other 
espects  doing  justice  to  her  virtues. 

8  '  La  liaison  qui  est  entre  M.  de  Cambrai  et  Madame  Guyon  est  fondle 
sur  la  conformity  de  la  doctrine ;  ou  peut-on  voir  le  danger,  etant  soutenue 


376  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

urinate  acts,  is  rapt  in  the  purely  spiritual  contemplation 
of  the  infinitely  perfect,  ineffable  Being,  and  is  even  un- 
mindful at  times  of  its  own  salvation.  This  teaching, 
which  the  Archbishop  of  Cambrai  had  taken  from  the  older 
mystics,  and  the  delineation  of  a  state  which  she  had  neither 
experienced  herself  nor  perceived  in  others,  appeared  to  her, 
as  well  as  to  most  people  with  whom  she  held  any  inter- 
course, repulsive  and  dangerous  ;  she  thought  that  God  had 
permitted  this  lofty  and  brilliant  intellect  to  fall  into  error 
in  order  to  humble  him. 

Fenelon  used  every  endeavour  to  draw  her  to  his  way 
of  thinking;  in  touching  persuasive  letters  he  put  before 
her  that  in  his  writings  he  had  merely  propounded  the  doc- 
trines of  mystics  and  ascetics  who  had  been  canonised  by 
the  church.  He  entertained,  it  is  very  evident,  a  high  opinion 
of  her  understanding  and  piety ;  he  thought  she  was  quali- 
fied to  form  an  independent  opinion  upon  these  obscure 
questions,  wrapt  as  they  were  in  peculiar  terminology  and 
the  subtleties  of  transcendental  metaphysics.  The  inti- 
macy between  him  and  her  had,  indeed,  been  so  great,  that 
Elisabeth  Charlotte  of  Orleans  could  say  that,  for  a  time,  he 
had  reigned  with  her.9  His  efforts,  however,  were  in  vain  ; 
Godet,  despite  the  friendship  which  had  existed  hitherto 
between  himself  and  Fenelon,  declared  strongly  and  de- 
cidedly against  the  book;  all  the  other  authorities  accessible 
to  the  marquise  gave  the  same  opinion.  Those  who  judged 
the  book  most  leniently,  she  says,  were  yet  of  opinion  that 
it  had  better  never  have  appeared.  Fenelon  himself  agreed 
with  her  to  some  extent  upon  this  point ;  he  ought,  he  wrote 
finally  to  her,  not  to  complain  that  she  believed  the  three 
great  prelates  (Bossuet,  Noailles,  and  Godet)  rather  than 

d'un  homme  de  telle  vertu,  d'un  tel  esprit,  et  dans  un  tel  poste  ?  Nous 
1'avons  cache  tant  que  nous  avons  espere  d'y  apporter  du  remede  ;  nous 
1'avons  decouvert  quand  nous  avons  cru  le  devoir  a  1'eglise  ;  voila  ce  qui 
dependait  de  nous,  c'est  a  Dieu  a  faire  le  reste.'  Correspond,  de  Mine,  dc  M. 
iv.  266. 

9  Rankc,  xiii.  159, 


XII 


OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  377 


him  alone,  and  that  the  safety  of  the  church  was  dearer  to 
her  than  his  personal  reputation. 

The  entire  order  of  the  Jesuits,  with  La  Chaise  at  its 
head,  in  Paris  as  well  as  in  Kome,  took  Fenelon's  part ; 
they  saw  in  him  their  advocate  and  fellow-combatant  against 
Jansenism,  and  their  mystics  taught  as  he  did ;  but  the 
allied  bishops  this  time  prevailed  with  the  king,  and  La 
Chaise  prudently  gave  way.  They  informed  the  king  that 
the  book  contained  innovations  of  a  very  dangerous  kind. 
That  was  quite  enough  for  a  monarch  in  whom  the  very 
word  innovation  was  sufficient  to  arouse  terror  and  indigna- 
tion. With  the  whole  weight  of  his  authority,  he  persuaded 
the  pope,  who  had  long  hesitated  and  now  only  yielded  with 
the  greatest  reluctance,  to  publish  a  solemn  condemnation 
of  the  book.  In  threatening  imperious  letters  he  explained 
to  the  Curia  that  all  he  had  demanded  was  such  a  condem- 
nation, and  nothing  else ;  a  simple  dogmatic  statement  of 
the  true  doctrine  he  would  upon  no  account  admit  into 
France.  So  the  sword  of  Brennus  was  thrown  into  the 
theological  scale.  Both  parties  carried  on  the  struggle  in 
Eome,  not  always  with  the  legitimate  weapons ;  Fenelon 
did  not  scruple  to  charge  Bossuet  with  Jansenism,  and  his 
agents  in  Eome  at  once  included  Noailles  and  Godet  in  the 
accusation ;  neither  did  he  omit  to  put  forward  his  own 
ultramontane  views  and  devoted  adherence  to  the  Eomish 
principles,  in  opposition  to  the  author  of  the  declaration  of 
1682. 

Amongst  the  persons  who  drew  upon  themselves  the 
king's  displeasure  upon  this  occasion  was  Madame  deMain- 
tenon  herself.  Louis  was  angry  with  her  for  having  re- 
commended this  man  to  him — with  whose  sentiments  she 
must  have  been  acquainted  long  before  the  appearance  of 
the  book — for  the  prince's  tutor  and  for  the  office  of  arch- 
bishop. Never,  she  says,  had  she  been  so  near  falling 
into  real  disgrace.  She  became  seriously  ill  from  grief 
and  worry,  so  that  the  king,  standing  by  her  bedside, 


.378  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

inquired  at  last  whether  she  really  meant  to  die  of  this 
affair. 

Fenelon  and  his  patroness  never  saw  each  other  nor 
exchanged  letters  again.  He  submitted  unreservedly  after 
Eome  had  condemned  twenty-three  propositions  drawn  from 
his  work.  She,  however,  did  not  believe  in  the  sincerity  of 
this  submission;  she  knew  too  well  that  his  system  had 
become  altogether  a  part  of  himself.  Fenelon  amongst 
his  friends  made  no  secret  of  his  conviction  that  truth  and 
justice  would  rather  have  required  the  condemnation  of  his 
opponent  Bossuet,  who  had  so  often  opposed  the  doctrine  of 
the  pure  unselfish  love  of  God,  to  preach  the  self-interested 
love  which  rests  upon  the  promise  and  the  hope  of  salva- 
tion. '  He  who  has  erred,'  he  wrote,  '  has  triumphed,  he 
who  was  free  from  error  has  been  crushed/'  l  He  lamented 
that  by  this  means,  that  is,  in  consequence  of  the  Koman 
decision,  the  faithful  were  led  astray ;  but  his  word  was 
pledged,  and  he  seems  to  have  believed  that  in  the  conflict 
of  two  duties,  the  duty  of  witnessing  to  the  truth  and  that 
of  obedience  to  the  church,  precedence  was  due  to  the  latter. 
Then  another  circumstance  arose,  which  for  Madame  de 
Maintenon  made  reconciliation  or  accommodation  of  any 
kind  impossible.  '  Telemaque  '  made  its  appearance.  She, 
as  well  as  almost  all  contemporary  readers,  perceived  in 
this  romance,  written  ostensibly  for  the  instruction  of  the 
prince,  the  design  of  setting  him  against  his  grandfather's 
method  of  government,  and  to  place  the  latter  in  the  un- 
favourable light  of  an  ambitious  conqueror  and  tyrannical 
oppressor  of  his  people.  In  her  eyes,  this  was  unpardonable 
ingratitude,  or  even  worse. 

Madame  de  Maintenon  would  have  succumbed  to  her 

1  '  Feu  M.  de  Meaux  a  combattu  mon  livre  par  prevention  pour  une  doc- 
trine pernicieuse  et  insoutenable,  qui  est  celle  de  dire  que  la  raison  d'aimer 
Dieu  ne  s'explique  que  par  le  seul  desir  du  bonheur.  On  a  tolere  et  laisse 
triompher  cette  indigne.  doctrine,  qui  degrade  la  charite  en  la  reduisant  au 
seul  motif  de  1'esperance.  Celui  qui  errait  a  prevalu  ;  celui  qui  etait  exempt 
d'erreur  a  ete  6crase.'  Correspondance  (1827),  iii.  246. 


OF  FRENCH  HISTOEY  379 

griefs  much  sooner,  had  it  not  been  for  Saint-Cyr,  the 
institution  which  at  her  desire  the  king  had  founded  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  Versailles,  and  richly  endowed, 
for  the  education  of  the  poor  daughters  of  the  nobility. 
She  felt  this  to  be  the  greatest  benefit  which  he  could  have 
conferred  upon  her.  Here  was  an  asylum  to  which  she 
could  fly  when  Versailles  became  intolerable  and  her  patience 
was  exhausted.  In  this  beloved  spot  the  king  allowed  her 
to  pass  the  hours  which  were  not  dedicated  to  him.  They 
were  the  happiest  hours  of  her  life.  There,  as  an  instruc- 
tress of  youth,  she  felt  herself  thoroughly  in  her  element. 
In  her  system  of  education  religion  entered  into  all  things. 
Little  by  little  her  energy,  guided  by  love  and  patience, 
accomplished  all  that  she,  in  combination  with  her  friend 
and  confessor  Godet,  thought  necessary  or  beneficial.  Upon 
the  teachers  of  the  establishment,  the  Dames  de  Saint- 
Louis,  she  left  the  impress  of  her  mind,  so  that  the  spirit 
of  her  teaching  was  preserved  throughout  the  century  that 
the  institution  existed. 

Yet  a  great  and  serious  change  in  the  discipline  of  the 
establishment  soon  proved  necessary,  and  was  accomplished 
by  the  marquise  not  without  bitter  feelings  of  sorrow  and 
self-reproach.  In  the  necessity  for  providing  distraction 
and  entertainment  for  the  king,  she  had  been  misled  into 
permitting  some  of  Kacine's  plays  to  be  performed  before 
him  by  the  young  ladies  of  Saint-Cyr.  Evil  consequences 
did  not  fail  to  show  themselves.  The  girls,  in  whom  the 
lavish  applause  of  so  distinguished  an  audience  soon  kindled 
feelings  of  pride,  vanity,  and  coquetry,  became  worldly, 
dissipated,  and  neglectful  of  their  former  occupations. 
'  They  have  wit,'  observed  the  marquise, '  and  use  it  against 
us,  and  they  are  haughtier  than  would  beseem  princesses.' 
She  at  once  set  about  expelling,  gradually  and  without 
harshness,  the  worldly  spirit  which  she  had  roused  ;  the- 
atricals were  banished  ;  the  cure  was  complete,  and  her 
pupils  became  contented  and  happier.  The  teachers  and 
governesses  of  the  institution,  the  Dames  de  Saint-Louis, 


380  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

were,  not  without  opposition,  transformed  into  a  religious 
body  bound  by  vows.  In  this  matter  again  she  was  follow- 
ing the  suggestions  of  Godet.  She  clung  to  Saint-Cyr  with 
the  energy  and  tender  affection  of  a  woman  who  finds  a 
suitable  sphere  for  the  exercise  of  her  faculties  and  incli- 
nations. Saint-Cyr  continued  to  be  the  comfort  and  sup- 
port of  her  life ;  there  she  breathed  a  purer  air,  there  she 
could,  for  a  few  hours  at  least,  forget  the  moral  miasma  of 
Versailles.  The  society  of  the  Dames  de  Saint-Louis,  and 
of  the  girls  committed  to  their  charge,  acted  upon  her  like 
a  purifying  and  invigorating  bath.  There  she  could  be  that 
which  fate  had  denied  to  her,  yet  for  which  she  was  so  pre- 
eminently fitted,  a  tender  careful  mother  overlooking  nought 
which  could  minister  either  to  the  bodily  or  the  spiritual 
health  of  her  children  ;  yielding  herself  up  to  the  delights 
of  unrestrained  intercourse,  beseeching,  exhorting,  warn- 
ing— with  unwearied  patience  if  need  were — commanding 
and  enforcing  ;  beloved  and  revered  by  almost  all  as  a 
higher  being,  the  slightest  word  from  whose  lips  ought 
to  be  preserved.  In  connection  with  this  institution  of  hers 
she  cherished  yet  higher  and  bolder  hopes  ;  she  saw  in  it  a 
nursery  of  youth,  from  whence  a  blessing  would  flow  upon 
family  life,  first  amongst  the  nobility  and  gradually  through 
all  classes.  Besides  this,  as  many  of  the  pupils  of  Saint- 
Cyr  gave  themselves  up  to  the  life  of  the  cloister  she  anti- 
cipated that  the  higher  tone  of  the  instruction  and  training 
acquired  at  Saint-Cyr  would  by  them  be  diffused  amongst 
other  convents  employed  in  the  education  of  girls. 

Nevertheless  Saint-Cyr,  though  so  beloved  and  so  full 
of  consolation,  was  a  source  of  anxiety  to  her  ;  for  when 
these  girls,  who  had  been  brought  up  with  such  care,  were 
ready  to  enter  upon  a  new  life,  the  question  arose,  what 
was  to  become  of  them  ?  They  were  all  poor,  only  a  small 
number  entered  convents ;  for  the  majority  husbands  had 
to  be  found.  '  We  are  in  want  of  sons-in-law,'  is  the  outcry 
of  the  motherly  heart  ;  the  marriages,  too,  must  be  suitable 
as  to  rank,  the  husbands  consequently  of  noble  birth.  But 


xir  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  381 

the  nobles  were  completely  impoverished,  and  had  no  call- 
ing in  life  but  the  army,  the  court,  or  the  church  ;  filled  no 
political  posts,  and  were  for  the  most  part  entirely  depen- 
pent  upon  royal  pensions,  in  the  bestowal  of  which  she 
had  great  influence,  although,  since  financial  distress  had 
increased,  the  pensions  had  sensibly  diminished.  Add  to 
this  the  immorality  of  the  men's  lives,  to  the  extent  of 
which  she  and  all  her  contemporaries  bear  witness,  was 
sufficient  to  deter  her  from  willingly  consigning  her  foster 
daughters  into  the  keeping  of  such  husbands.  Her  repre- 
sentations to  the  king  upon  this  point  appear  to  have  been 
just  as  fruitless  as  were  the  exhortations  from  the  pulpit 
calling  upon  him  to  check  the  evil.  He  tolerated  it  half 
willingly — upon  system,  if  the  statement  of  his  sister-in- 
law  is  to  be  credited — half  from  necessity  ;  in  any  attempt 
at  reform  he  must  have  begun  with  his  own  brother.  The 
assertion  of  the  marquise  that  in  her  experience  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  the  marriages,  in  the  class'  whose 
daughters  she  educated,  proved  unhappy,  is  probably 
correct  ;  and  the  opinion  of  another  lady,  Elisabeth 
Charlotte,  whose  observations  were  made  in  the  same 
sphere  as  those  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  goes  further, 
and  says  that  out  of  a  thousand  marriages  scarcely  two 
turned  out  well.  The  marquise  consequently  did  not 
hesitate  to  set  before  the  pupils  of  Saint- Cyr  a  highly  re- 
pulsive picture  of  men.  In  her  private  correspondence  she 
alludes  to  the  worthlessness  of  the  men  of  her  acquaintance 
in  expressions  which  make  it  evident  that  she  gathered  her 
impressions  and  made  her  observations  amid  the  same 
scenes,  and  in  the  same  class  of  people,  as  Larochefoucauld 
when  collecting  the  materials  for  his  maxims.2 

A  variety  of  opinions  have  been  formed  as  to  the  share 

2  '  Je  serais  bien  fachee,  madame,  que  vous  m'otassiez  1'estime  que  j'ai 
pour  le  comte  de  Bergheitz,  car  je  voudrais  bien  croire  qu'il  y  a  un  fort 
honnete  homme  dans  le  monde ;  je  comprends  pourtant  bien  qu'il  n'y  en  a 
point  de  parfait.'  Lcttres  de  Mine  de  M.  et  des  Ursins,  iii.  133.  This  is  only 
one  example  of  the  utterances  from  which  her  opinion  of  the  men  who 
c  me  into  her  circle  can  be  seen. 


382  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

taken  by  Madame  de  Maintenon  in  public  affairs,  and  as  to 
her  influence  in  the  disposal  of  the  highest  offices  ;  both 
have  been  either  exaggerated  or  treated  too  lightly.  Her 
spiritual  adviser  had  prescribed  for  her  a  course  of  conduct 
which  from  its  indefiniteness,  and  the  way  it  partly  encou- 
raged and  partly  dissuaded,  must  have  filled  her  with  doubt 
and  dismay.  Where  the  interests  of  the  church  were  con- 
cerned she  ought  to  be  unsparing  in  the  exercise  of  her 
influence  with  the  king.  But  in  many  cases  secular  things 
trenched  upon  the  religious  and  ecclesiastical  sphere— 
and  here  it  was  impossible  to  draw  an  undeviating  line. 
Gradually  a  tacit  understanding  grew  up  between  the  mar- 
quise and  the  ministers  of  the  crown,  on  the  strength  of 
which  her  hands  were  left  free  in  church  matters,  whilst  she 
kept  herself  aloof  from  secular  affairs,  or  else  in  agreement 
with  the  ministers  ;  in  mixed  questions  a  compromise  was 
sought,  or  the  king  himself  decided. 

There  was  nothing  contradictory  in  her  assurance  that 
she  hated  political  affairs,  and  yet,  as  time  went  on,  was 
more  and  more  occupied  with  them,  particularly  after  1701, 
and  she  was  supposed  to  have  acquired  boundless  influence 
in  this  department.  She  hated  public  business  all  the  more 
because  she  was  conscious  of  her  own  deficient  knowledge ; 
she  often  found  it  to  be  the  case  that  projects,  which  she 
had  carefully  built  up  in  every  detail,  collapsed  suddenly 
from  some  circumstance  upon  which  she  had  failed  to  calcu- 
late ;  or  when  she  desired  to  act  she  felt  herself  entangled  as 
it  were  in  the  meshes  of  an  invisible  net  of  which  she  was 
unable  to  break  the  threads.  In  addition  to  this,  no  sooner 
did  she  in  any  way  take  part  in  the  government,  swayed  as 
it  was  in  those  days  by  fiscal  interests,  than  she  found  her- 
self in  conflict  with  her  religious  convictions. 

Twice  only  in  her  life  did  it  happen  to  the  marquise  to 
be  present  at  a  sitting  of  the  cabinet  council.  In  a  letter 
to  Archbishop  de  Noailles  she  describes  the  astonishment, 
mingled  with  terror  and  disgust,  with  which  she  perceived 
the  principles  and  aims  which  guided  the  conduct  of  public 


xii.  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  383 

business  and  the  way  in  which  it  was  carried  on. 3  And  yet 
at  that  time  she  saw  but  the  prelude  to  the  arbitrary  acts 
and  oppressive  measures,  by  which  in  later  years,  during 
the  War  of  the  Succession,  the  unfortunate  people  were 
oppressed  and  driven  to  the  brink  of  ruin  and  bankruptcy. 
The  first  event  which  decidedly  injured  her  in  the  public 
opinion  was  the  Peace  of  Eyswick,  by  which  the  nine  years' 
war  was  ended  in  1647.  Louis  had  brought  about  this  war 
by  his  arrogance  and  his  desire  for  his  own  aggrandise- 
ment ;  had  made  gigantic  efforts  to  carry  it  on,  to  the  utter 
exhaustion  of  his  people  and  of  the  resources  of  the  country ; 
the  French  armies  had  been  victorious  in  almost  every 
battle ;  yet  now  he  relinquished  nearly  every  conquest  which 
he  had  made.  Madame  de  Maintenon  had  written  to  her 
friend  Brinon,  whilst  the  war  was  still  going  on,  that  it  was 
the  cause  of  God  that  the  king  was  defending — can  she  have 
thought  of  the  barbarities  with  which  the  war  was  being 
carried  on  in  the  Palatinate  and  Piedmont  ? — and  the  enemy 
would  surely  be  overcome  in  consequence.  The  king  also 
was  certain  that  God  would  grant  him  success,  and  yet  he 
was  fully  aware  at  the  time  of  the  misery  of  the  people. 4 
And  now  this  humiliation  had  befallen  the  proudest  of 
monarchs — his  withdrawal  from  everything  beyond  the 
frontier  of  1681,  with  the  exception  of  Strasburg.  It  was 
the  overthrow  and  condemnation  of  the  whole  of  the  policy 
followed  since  the  Peace  of  Nimeguen.  Surprise  was  uni- 
versal, the  matter  seemed  inexplicable.  In  Paris,  in  Ver- 
sailles, throughout  France,  the  influence  of  Madame  de 

3  '  Quand  on  est  du  conseil,  Monseigneur,  on  est  mysterieux.    Le  roi  nous 
a  impose  silence  sur  ce  qui  se  passa  il  y  a  quinze  jours.     Et  en  verite,  c'est 
un  bien  pour  moi,  et  encore  plus  pour  eux,  que  je  n'ose  dire  tout  ce  que  je 
vis,  et  tout  ce  que  j'entendis.     J'en  suis  tout  afiiigee,  Monseigneur,  non- 
seulement  par  rapport  a  1'affaire  presente,  mais  pour  toutes  celles  que  ces 
messieurs  auront  a  traiter.     Get  echantillon  me  fait  voir  que  je  mourrais 
de  douleur  si  j'assistais  au  conseil.     Que  les  rois  sont  a  plaindre  !     Que  les 
hommes  sont  mauvais  !     Ennn,  Monseigneur,  si  1'on  ne  prenait  patience 
en  considerant  celle  de  Dieu,  on  se  desespererait.'     Correspond,  de  Mine, 
de  M.  iv.  263. 

4  Mtmoires  de  Languet,  401, 


884  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN]  xn 

Maintenon  was  thought  to  be  the  key  to  the  enigma.  It 
had,  in  fact,  something  to  do  with  it,  in  so  far  that,  as  Torcy 
remarks,  the  utter  exhaustion  of  the  nation  and  the  pro- 
spect of  an  immediate  opening  of  the  question  of  the  Spanish 
succession,  made  the  king's  mind  more  accessible  to  her 
arguments.  Be  that  as  it  may,  she  was  supposed  in  France 
to  be  chiefly  to  blame ;  from  henceforth,  she  complained, 
she  must  *  live  upon  poison,  she  must  submit  to  be  hated 
and  reviled,'  and  Godet  did  not  hide  from  her  that  public 
opinion  was  against  her. 5 

The  year  1701  ushered  in  important  changes  for  Madame 
de  Maintenon,  as  for  the  whole  of  France.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  the  War  of  the  Succession,  in  which  France, 
without  allies,  for  twelve  years  withstood  the  assaults  of 
half  Europe.  She  was  obliged  now,  despite  her  aversion,  to 
take  part  in  political  affairs.  She  alone  possessed  that  far- 
sightedness which  was  wanting  in  the  ministers  and  even  in 
the  king.  Since  the  sins  committed  in  youthful  arrogance 
had  begun  to  avenge  themselves  so  fearfully,  and  now  that 
numerous  defeats  had  to  be  acknowledged ;  now,  also,  that 
in  the  midst  of  danger  and  distress,  the  most  unwelcome 
measures  must  needs  be  adopted,  the  aged  and  infirm  mon- 
arch had  lost  his  taste  for  public  business,  and  his  wife  felt 
that,  if  only  to  lighten  the  burden  for  him  and  to  prolong 
as  far  as  possible  a  life  grown  more  than  ever  indispensable 
to  the  state,  she  must  be  at  his  side  to  advise  and  to  labour 
with  him.  She  mediated  between  him  and  the  ministers, 
held  conferences  with  them,  assisted  them  in  reasoning 
with  the  king,  and  occasionally  shared  in  their  defeat.  She 
has  been  blamed  for  inducing  the  ministers  to  conceal  im- 
portant events  of  a  vexatious  kind  from  the  king,  and  for  the 
evil  results  which  followed.  Here  the  woman's  nature  pre- 
dominated, allowing  solicitude  for  his  person  to  trouble  her 
political  vision.  She  now  read  despatches  from  the  am- 
bassadors at  foreign  courts,  consulted  with  Chamillard  and 

5  Spanheim  certifies  this  in  his  report  of  1689.     See  Bulletin  de  Vlnstitut 
•national  Gentvois,  t.  viii.  186. 


OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  885 


Torcy,  and  the  lately  published  letters  of  the  Marechal  de 
Villars  show  that  this  general  fully  confided  in  her  judg- 
ment, and  availed  himself  of  her  services  in  communica- 
ting with  the  king.  From  her  long  correspondence  with 
her  friend  the  Princess  Orsini,  who  at  that  time  ruled  in 
Spain,  we  perceive  that  she  also  took  an  interest  in  Spanish 
affairs.  G 

Thus  she  lived  through  twelve  years  of  torment,  during 
which  she  was  seldom  free  from  the  longing  to  be  relieved 
by  death  from  the  heavy  burden  of  ceaseless  anxiety.  With 
her  excitable  disposition  and  susceptibility  for  all  painful 
impressions,  political  and  military  disasters  were  to  her  the 
occasion  of  physical  suffering.  She  mentions  in  one  place 
that  the  news  of  a  threatened  inroad  of  the  Savoyards  into 
Dauphine  obliged  her  to  keep  her  bed  for  twenty-four 
hours.  When  informed  that  her  friend  Brinon  dreaded 
the  approach  of  death,  she  wrote:  'Is-  it  possible? 
By  me  the  announcement  of  death  would  be  hailed  with 
delight  !  ' 

Entertaining  strong  feelings  both  patriotic  and  religious, 
she  was  greatly  perplexed  by  the  victories  of  the  enemy.  It 
seemed  to  her  inexplicable  that  God  should  bless  the  arms 
of  the  heretical  powers,  and  should  permit  three  worthy  and 
zealous  Catholic  kings,  as  she  terms  the  two  Bourbons  and 
the  English  Pretender,  to  be  defeated.  Yet  the  thought 
now  and  then  occurs  to  her  that  the  king  by  his  haughty 

6  '  J'ai  toujours  a  Pesprit  PEspagne  presque  perdue,  la  paix  qui  s'eloigne 
de  plus  en  plus,  les  miseres  que  j'apprend  de  tous  cotes,  mille  gens  qui 
souft'rent  sous  mes  yeux,  et  que  je  ne  puis  soulager  ;  du  cote  de  la  piete, 
tous  les  exces  qui  regnent  presentement,  cette  ivrognerie,  cette  gourmandise, 
ce  luxe  excessif,  etc.;  de  celui  de  la  religion,  le  danger  visible  ou  je  vois 
qu'elle  est.  Je  ne  sais  s'il  faut  porter  le  roi  a  pousser  les  choses  jusqu'a 
un  certain  point,  ou  s'il  faut  le  moderer  ;  car  qui  sait  si  une  conduite  trop 
severe  n'aigrira  pas  les  esprits,  n'excitera  pas  une  r6volte,  ne  causera  pas  un 
schisme  ?  D'un  autre  cote,  qui  sait  si  Dieu  s'accommode  de  cette  prudence 
humaine  et  de  la  politique  des  hommes,  quand  il  s'agit  de  Pinteret  de  Peglise? 
Tout  cela  m'agite  a  un  point  inconcevable  ...  en  verit6  la  tete  en  est 
quelquefois  prSte  a  me  tourner  ;  je  crois  que  si  on  ouvrait  mon  corps  apres 
ma  mort,  on  trouverait  mon  cceur  sec  et  tors  comme  celui  de  M.  de  Louvois.' 
Lettres  hist,  et  edif,  ii.  277. 

C  C 


386  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  XH 

violence,  and  the  nation  by  its  corruption,  may  have 
merited  the  divine  chastisement.  She  knew  full  well  where 
the  chief  delinquents  were  to  be  found.  She  daily  saw  how 
the  covetousness,  the  intrigues,  and  animosities  of  the  court 
interfered  ruinously  with  the  course  of  government,  and 
were  mixed  up  with  the  conduct  of  the  war.  To  Archbishop 
de  Noailles  she  wrote  :  '  Most  people  here  betray  and  ruin 
their  friends  and  relations  simply  for  the  sake  of  being  able 
to  say  one  word  more  to  the  king  and  to  show  him  that 
they  would  sacrifice  everything  to  him.  In  this  terrible 
place  (that  is  to  say  the  court)  there  is  nobody  who  is  not 
infected  with  the  general  dishonesty ;  the  court  transforms 
even  the  best.'  Elisabeth  Charlotte  from  her  own  point  of 
view  made  the  very  same  observation  in  almost  the  same 
words. 

When  at  length  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  had  unexpectedly 
been  concluded  to  the  advantage  of  France,  leaving  the 
kingdom  intact  and  the  dynasty  upon  the  Spanish  throne, 
Madame  de  Maintenon  felt  herself  once  more  a  genuine 
Frenchwoman,  longing  for  the  glory  of  her  royal  husband. 
Her  first  thought  was  not  of  the  misery  of  the  people,  well- 
nigh  ruined,  and  bleeding  from  countless  wounds,  but  of  the 
glory  which  Louis  had  gained  in  having  arrived  without 
loss  of  territory  at  the  termination  of  a  war  in  which  half 
Europe  had  been  ranged  against  him.  Had  she  not  been 
blinded  some  presentiment  at  least  must  have  risen  before 
her  mind  that  the  mischief  done  was  now  past  all  remedy, 
that  the  general  corruption  of  the  political  and  moral  forces 
of  the  nation  would,  at  no  very  distant  period,  lead  to  some 
tremendous  catastrophe  and  to  the  downfall  of  the  edifice  ! 

However  little  in  harmony  it  may  appear  with  her 
character  as  otherwise  known,  one  cannot  help  perceiving 
in  her  a  certain  hard-hear tedness,  and  a  fanaticism, 
apparently  rather  instilled  into  her  than  of  spontaneous 
growth.  Her  French  critics  probably  hint  at  this  when 
they  speak  almost  unanimously  of  her  dryness  (secheresse) . 
She  has  not  a  word  of  regret  or  sympathy  for  the  twice 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  887 

devastated  Palatinate,  or  for  Piedmont  given  over  to  fire 
and  sword.  She  encourages  her  brother  to  enrich  himself 
by  the  acquisition,  at  a  nominal  price,  of  the  properties 
of  the  Protestant  nobles  in  Poitou.  She  reports,  as  a 
matter  of  business,  to  Cardinal  de  Noailles  that  several  hun- 
dred more  '  fanatics  ' — i.e.  Protestant  peasants  fighting  for 
liberty  of  conscience — have  been  killed  in  the  Cevennes, 
and  that  it  is  expected  that  the  whole  of  Languedoc  will 
now  be  '  purged  '  from  them.  Here,  it  must  be  admitted, 
one  fanaticism  was  pitted  against  another,  but  she  had 
helped  to  kindle  the  flame. 

We  have  still  to  take  into  consideration  her  whole  atti- 
tude towards  French  Protestantism.  The  accusation  most 
frequently  brought  against  her  is  that  upon  her  must  fall 
the  chief  burden  of  responsibility  for  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes  and  the  oppression  of  the  Protestants. 
This  accusation  must  in  some  respects  be  modified,  in 
others  emphasised. 

To  destroy  the  Protestant  Church  in  his  kingdom  was 
Louis's  first  aim ;  he  varied  only  in  the  choice  of  means 
to  the  end  which  he  had  set  before  him  from  the  be- 
ginning. It  belonged  to  the  glory  which  was  to  encom- 
pass himself  and  his  reign  ;  if  he  were  successful,  he  would 
stand  high  above  his  predecessors,  whose  efforts  had  failed 
in  the  beginning,  and  who  had  not  had  the  courage  to  renew 
them.  Was  it  to  be  supposed  that  he  in  his  omnipo- 
tence could  not  bring  about  that  which  the  Austrian 
Habsburgs  in  their  hereditary  dominions  had,  apparently 
at  least,  accomplished  successfully  ?  It  was  intolerable, 
that  a  considerable  portion  of  his  subjects  should  consider 
him  as  in  error  upon  some  of  the  weightiest  matters  ;  that 
they  must  wish  success  to  his  enemies  in  his  wars  with 
Protestant  powers,  which  he  himself,  as  well  as  the  southern 
and  eastern  powers  and  the  bulk  of  the  nation,  chose  to 
reckon  as  religious  wars  ! 

The  system  of  coercion  and  bribery  pursued  for  twenty 
years  had  already  achieved  much  when  in  the  year  1685 

e  c  2 


388  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

the  decisive  blow  was  dealt  by  the  revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes.  Whether  this  was  done  by  the  advice  of  the 
marquise  remains  uncertain ;  anyhow,  she  did  not  venture 
upon  any  opposition.  She  related  at  Saint-Cyr  how  that 
once,  when  she  had  recommended  some  mitigation  of  the 
proceedings,  Louis  had  said  that  apparently  she  still  re- 
tained some  affection  for  the  opinions  of  her  youth.  In 
reality  she  thought,  in  common  with  every  one  else  in 
France,  especially  the  clergy  except  the  Jansenists,  that 
religious  liberty  was  highly  objectionable,  and  that  coercion 
and  force  were  not  only  most  praiseworthy  when  employed 
against  the  unorthodox,  but  a  duty  incumbent  on  the 
monarch  as  the  guardian  of  the  church.  This  was  the 
teaching  of  Eome,  re-echoed  from  pulpits  and  professorial 
chairs,  and  recorded  in  episcopal  pastorals.  Even  Pope 
Innocent  XI.,  by  no  means  amicably  disposed  towards 
Louis,  commended  the  king's  action  as  most  praiseworthy 
and  meritorious,  and  celebrated  it  in  Eome  with  brilliant 
festivities. 

It  contributed  essentially  to  the  ill-will  of  the  king  and 
Madame  de  Maintenon  towards  the  Jansenists,  that  they 
refused  to  share  in  the  general  rejoicings  and  were  scan- 
dalised by  the  coercive  measures.  Besides  this,  Godet, 
being  in  favour  of  coercion,  if  not  exactly  of  the  dragonades, 
insisted  that  the  new  converts  should  be  compelled  to 
attend  mass  and  to  partake  of  the  sacrament.  Other 
bishops  disapproved  of  this ;  they  thought  that  many  would 
thus  become  guilty  of  sacrilege,  and  even  Madame  de 
Maintenon  recoiled  from  the  idea  with  horror.  Yet  her 
memoranda  for  the  year  1697  7  breathe  a  striking  harsh- 
ness. She  rejects  any  possibility  of  granting  even  the 
smallest  measure  of  religious  liberty;  the  reputation  of 
the  king  forbade  that  he  should  make  any  retrograde 
step  ;  the  practice  must  be  continued  of  depriving  parents 
of  their  children  to  bring  them  up  as  Catholics.  The 

1  Lavallee,  Correspondance  g6n.  de  Mme.  de  M.  iv.  199  ff. 


OF  FKENCH  HISTORY  889 

memoranda  prove  how  completely  she  shared  the  king's 
views  upon  this  vital  question,  and  that  she  agreed  with 
the  bishops  who  had  extolled  the  action  of  the  king  in 
enforcing  the  faith.  It  would,  she  said,  be  incompatible 
with  the  king's  honour  and  dignity  to  permit  any  of  those 
who  had  emigrated  to  return;  the  converts  would  derive 
fresh  hope  from  the  permission,  and  would  again  leave  the 
church  ;  the  complete  extermination  of  Protestantism  must 
be  carried  out.  Without  a  word  of  disapprobation  she 
mentions  the  breaking  of  the  king's  word,  when  in  a  second 
edict,  after  that  he  had  promised  the  Protestants  to  abstain 
from  coercive  measures,  he  forthwith  commanded  the 
severest  penalties  and  cruelties  to  be  resorted  to  without 
mercy,  including  confiscations,  dragonades,  slavery  in  the 
galleys,  imprisonments,  and  abduction  of  children  from 
their  parents.  All  that  she  would  have  granted  then  is 
expressed  in  the  words  '  imperceptible  mitigation.'  Attend- 
ance at  divine  worship  is  to  be  enforced  by  the  severest 
penalties ;  and  since  the  penalty  of  death  was  then  in  force 
in  such  cases,  it  is  evident  that  she  gave  her  consent  to 
that.  She  remained,  in  short,  the  worthy  disciple  of  her 
director,  Godet,  excepting  upon  one  point :  she  could  not 
approve  that  the  hundreds  of  thousands  who  had  been 
forced  to  abjure  their  faith  should  also  be  driven  to  the 
sacrilegious  reception  of  the  sacrament.  Her  spiritual  in- 
structor, Godet,  insisted  on  this,  because,  he  thought,  it  was 
impossible  to  allow  a  large  section  of  the  population  to 
remain  entirely  without  religion,  and  to  suffer  a  generation 
of  atheists  to  spring  up ;  true,  indeed,  it  was  that  men  were 
forced  thereby  into  deadly  sin,  hypocrisy,  and  the  desecra- 
tion of  all  that  was  holiest ;  but  for  that  the  responsibility 
fell,  not  upon  those  who  exercised  compulsion,  but  upon  those 
who  suffered  under  it.  This  was  too  much,  however,  even 
for  a  woman  of  her  blind  credulity  to  accept;  and  she 
therefore  took  the  part  of  the  prelates  who,  like  the  Cardi- 
nals de  Noailles  and  Le  Camus  and  the  friends  of  Janse- 
nism, rejected  compulsory  confession  and  communion  as 


390  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

blasphemous  and  ungodly.  In  helpless  perplexity  the 
bishops  conferred  with  one  another ;  none  knew  how  to  dis- 
cover a  reasonable  way  out  of  the  labyrinth  into  which  the 
king,  with  the  bishops  and  clergy,  had  been  led  by  the  heads 
of  the  church. 

After  the  lapse  of  several  years  bishops  and  intendants 
announced  the  fact,  which,  however,  was  for  the  most  part 
concealed  from  the  king,  that  the  only  result  arrived  at  had 
been  to  make  the  people  utterly  irreligious  and  to  cause 
countless  acts  of  sacrilege  to  be  committed  ;  true  conver- 
sion was  as  far  off  as  ever.  Some  variation  was  made  in 
the  methods  of  persecution ;  and  a  few  of  the  coercive 
measures  which  had  proved  ineffectual  were  allowed  to 
drop.  Then,  again,  the  most  fearful  punishments  were 
ordered  to  check  the  wholesale  emigration.  The  treatment 
of  the  Protestants  was  like  that  of  a  sick  man  whom  an 
unskilful  surgeon  tortures  and  mutilates  with  cuts  and  stabs 
first  in  one  direction  and  then  in  another.  Everything  was 
done  to  make  their  existence  in  France  unendurable.  When, 
at  length,  about  100,000  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  indus- 
trious families  in  France  had  taken  refuge  abroad,  and 
their  loss  to  the  country  was  becoming  yearly  more  percep- 
tible, covert  endeavours  were  made  to  introduce  some  re- 
laxation of  the  regulations  in  force,  and  to  induce  some  of 
the  exiles  to  return.  The  attempt  failed.  As  to  the  opinion 
of  the  marquise  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  helped  to  bring 
about  the  outbreak  of  war  in  the  Cevennes,  which  neces- 
sitated a  division  of  the  French  forces  just  at  the  time  of 
the  last  great  war,  cost  the  lives  of  100,000  men  as  well  as 
the  destruction  of  500  townships,  and  brought  upon  the 
king  the  deepest  humiliation  he  had  yet  suffered,  viz.  the 
necessity  of  treating  with  the  rebels,  and  of  making  con- 
cessions to  them.  It  is  a  dark  page  in  the  history  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon.  Here,  as  in  other  cases,  the  king 
and  she  alternately  excited  and  deluded  themselves.  Hence 
the  inconsistency  and  arbitrariness  of  the  measures  resorted 
to.  The  most  severe  and  mischievous  of  the  regulations 


xii  OF  FEENCH  HISTOKY  391 

were  not  enforced  whenever,  from  the  pressure  of  foreign 
affairs,  any  aggravation  of  the  situation  was  feared.  But 
as  soon  as  the  danger  was  removed  all  the  most  odious 
measures  were  once  more  put  into  execution.  For  Madame 
de  Maintenon,  as  well  as  the  king,  the  ministers,  and  the 
bishops,  the  fundamental  idea  remained  ever  the  same, 
namely,  that  Protestantism  must  be  exterminated. 

In  the  reports  of  the  crown  officials,  and  even  of  the 
missionaries,  though  they  were  only  intended  to  increase 
the  king's  satisfaction  as  to  his  spiritual  triumphs,  there 
were  yet  features  to  be  found  which  might  well  have  served 
to  bring  the  court  to  its  senses.  It  was  observed  that  the 
Protestants,  as  is  usual  with  oppressed  minorities,  were  in 
general  more  moral,  and  consequently  more  thrifty,  than 
the  Catholics,  and  it  had  to  be  granted  that  by  compelling 
them  to  deny  their  belief,  their  morality,  which  was  entirely 
founded  upon  religious  principle,  was  completely  destroyed. 
It  was  reported,  besides,  that  the  members  of  a  community 
accustomed  from  childhood  to  an  evangelical  form  of  divine 
worship,  conducted  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  could  not  be 
brought  to  content  themselves  with  what  appeared  to 
them  the  incomprehensible  and  theatrical  rite  of  the 
Catholic  mass.  Even  Bossuet  was  anxious  to  concede  to 
them  the  reception  of  the  sacrament  in  both  kinds,  and 
he  considered  that  negotiations  might  be  opened  with  the 
Holy  See  to  that  intent.  Madame  de  Maintenon,  how- 
ever, whose  change  of  religion  had  taken  place  early  in 
life,  had  lost  all  sympathy  with  the  views  and  needs  of 
Protestantism,  whilst  the  king  would  not  endure  the  bare 
thought  that  any  one  in  France  should  possess  a  religious 
privilege  that  was  denied  to  himself.  It  must  be  under- 
stood that  not  the  slightest  peculiarity  could  be  tolerated 
which  would  disturb  the  symmetry  of  absolute  submission  • 
and,  consequently,  the  overtures  in  favour  of  unity,  put  for- 
ward simultaneously  by  the  bishop  Spinola  and  Leibnitz, 
were  straightway  rejected.  Afterwards  when  the  quarrel 
over  the  bull  Uniyenitns  was  raging,  it  was  remarked  thai 


392  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

the  religious  world  in  France  was  distinguished  by  the 
anomaly  that  those  who  desired  the  communion  (the  Appel- 
lants) were  denied  it,  whilst  those  who  abhorred  it  (the  Pro- 
testants) were  forced  to  partake  of  it.  Even  to  the  Catholics 
the  whole  proceeding  was  in  the  highest  degree  injurious. 
The  mass  of  the  people  were  brutalised  and  demoralised  by 
the  sight  of  the  violence  so  frequently  practised  upon  many 
defenceless  and  innocent  beings,  and  by  the  assistance  which 
they  were  called  upon  to  render  towards  it.  The  tribunals, 
forced  to  abet  such  lawless  cruelties,  suffered  in  reputation. 
All  sense  of  justice  must  have  been  stifled  when,  between 
1686  and  1757,  people  could  calmly  allow  over  7,000  men 
to  be  condemned  to  the  galleys  simply  because,  for  the  sake 
of  their  faith,  they  had  attempted  to  quit  France  ;  and 
when  the  rule  was  laid  down  that  Protestant  galley  slaves 
should  never  be  set  at  liberty  even  when  their  period  of 
punishment  had  expired.  The  clergy  also  lost  credit  and 
influence  amongst  the  people.  When  *  the  Angels'  Bread,' 
the  most  sacred  Christian  ordinance  and  most  precious  gift 
of  the  church,  for  partaking  of  which  steadfast  faith  and 
moral  purity  ought  to  be  indispensable,  was  daily  thrown 
away  upon  men  who  received  it  with  inward  repugnance, 
and  even  with  aversion,  the  inevitable  effect  produced  was 
twofold  :  contempt  for  the  men  who,  as  stewards  of  the 
sanctuary,  played  so  unworthy  a  part ;  and  a  growing 
disregard  for  the  desecrated  gift.  The  years  1685  and  1793 
stand  in  closer  relation  as  cause  and  effect  than  might 
appear  to  the  superficial  observer. 

Madame  de  Maintenon  considered  her  highest  duty  and 
most  sacred  task  to  be  the  conversion  of  the  king.  God, 
she  thought,  had  providentially  ordained  that  she  should  be 
placed  at  the  side  of  Louis  that  she  might  raise  him  out  of  a 
dead,  fruitless  belief  and  mechanical  observance  of  precepts 
and  ceremonies  to  a  living  and  effective  faith,  founded  upon 
the  love  of  God  and  of  his  neighbour.  A  prayer  composed 
by  her  has  been  preserved,  in  which  she  desires  that  God 


xii  OF  FEENCH  HISTORY  393 

may  open  the  heart  of  the  king,  that  God  may  enable  her 
to  please,  to  comfort,  and  to  encourage  the  king,  and  even, 
if  it  were  to  God's  honour,  to  grieve  him ;  that  she  may 
hide  nothing  from  him  in  matters  of  which  he  ought  to  be 
informed  by  her,  and  which  no  one  else  would  have  the 
courage  to  say.8 

It  was  her  purpose  to  exercise  a  priestly  office  towards 
the  king,  and  to  act  as  a  better  physician  and  guide  to  his 
soul  than  the  one  whom  he  had  chosen,  and  whom  he  only 
retained,  as  she  thought,  out  of  consideration  for  his  feel- 
ings ;  she  would  organise  a  small  household  church  with  a 
view  both  to  stimulate  and  to  edify  him.  This,  indeed, 
succeeded  only  for  a  short  time ;  Louis  soon  became  restive, 
and  excused  himself,  saying  •  Je  ne  suis  pas  un  homme  de 
suite — it  was  not  given  to  him  to  persevere  in  such  things. 
In  her  bitter  disappointment  she  exclaimed  that  God  might 
well  have  not  deemed  her  worthy  of  so  great  a  happiness. 
Her  ceaseless  endeavours  to  breathe  a  Christian  spirit  into 
the  king  remained  unsuccessful.  She  acknowledged  regret- 
fully that  he  was  only  moved  to  the  performance  of  religious 
exercises  by  the  fear  of  hell  ;  and  all  his  contemporaries 
who  knew  him  intimately  agree  in  this.  Even  foreign 
ambassadors  such  as  Spanheim  and  Sinzendorf  were 
struck  with  this  trait  in  him.  When  Bossuet  upon  one 
occasion  mentioned  to  Louis  the  necessity  of  the  love  of 
God  for  obtaining  forgiveness  of  sins,  he,  a  man  of  sixty 
years  of  age,  who  had  been  to  confession  a  hundred 
times,  and  as  often  received  absolution,  replied  that  *  he 
had  never  heard  of  it.' 

The  marquise  would  not  allow  herself  to  be  discouraged. 
Hopeful  and  untiring,  she  continued  to  labour  for  the  re- 
ligious reformation  of  the  king;  but  the  impressions  he 
had  received  in  early  youth  from  his  Spanish  mother  and 
his  confessor  remained  ineradicable.  Louis  punctiliously 
observed  all  the  forms  and  gestures  prescribed  to  him, 

8  Lettrcs,  iii.  319. 


394  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

recited  prayers,  observed  seasons  of  fasting,  attended  mass, 
wore  relics  under  his  clothes,  suffered  no  unorthodox  per- 
son about  him,  reckoned  amongst  obligatory  observances 
for  the  expiation  of  his  sins  the  extermination  of  heretics 
and  the  defence  of  the  church ;  but  sanctification,  as  his 
wife  termed  the  evangelical  spirit,  found  no  place  in  him.9 
She  succeeded  only  now  and  then  in  arousing  him  for  a 
moment,  although,  during  the  sorrowful  times  of  the  War 
of  Succession,  she  had  often  to  dry  his  tears. 

Opposed  to  her  in  this  matter  stood  Pere  La  Chaise,  a 
man  who  long  before  her  day  and  through  most  critical 
times  had  been  the  proved,  complaisant,  long-suffering 
guide  of  the  king's  conscience,  building  upon  the  founda- 
tion which  his  predecessors,  Dinet,  Paulin,  Terrier,  and 
Annat  had  laid  in  Louis's  soul.  The  order  in  whose  name 
and  under  the  shelter  of  whose  authority  Pere  La  Chaise 
performed  the  onerous  duties  of  his  office,  enjoyed  the  king's 
hearty  and  unreserved  confidence ;  he  saw  in  it  a  bulwark 
of  the  royal  power  and  a  spiritual  army  prepared  to  do 
battle  for  the  interests  of  France  in  the  east  and  west,  as 
well  as  in  the  south.  To  the  royal  confessor  the  chief 
doctrines  of  his  order,  especially  the  doctrine  of  attrition 
— namely,  that  the  mere  fear  of  hell,  without  love,  was 
sufficient  to  merit  absolution  and  the  assurance  of  salva- 
tion— and  of  probabilism — i.e.  the  art  of  transforming 
serious  sins  into  light  ones,  or  even  into  innocent  transac- 
tions— were  for  Louis's  case  remarkably  serviceable.  La 
Chaise  was  for  many  years  the  most  powerful  man  in  the 
French  Church,  as  the  royal  patronage — that  is  to  say, 
the  disposal  of  all  ecclesiastical  dignities  and  benefices — 
was  centred  in  him.  On  this  account  the  whole  of  the 
nobility,  whose  younger  sons  were  to  be  provided  for  in 

9  '  La  religion  est  peu  connue  a  la  cour ;  on  veut  1'accommoder  a  soi,  et 
non  pas  s'accommoder  a  elle ;  on  a  toutes  les  pratiques  exterieures  mais 
non  pas  1'esprit.  Le  roi  ne  manquera  pas  a  une  station  ni  a  une  abstinence ; 
mais  il  ne  comprendra  pas  qu'il  faille  s'humilier  et  prendre  1'esprit  d'une 
vraie  penitence,  et  que  nous  devrions  nous  couvrir  du  sac  et  de  la  cendre 
pour  demander  la  paix.'  Correspond,  dc  Mine,  dc  M.  iy.  308. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  395 

the  church,  were  devoted  to  him  and  to  the  order,  and  the 
dependence  of  the  bishops  and  clergy  upon  the  favour 
of  the  order  was  likewise  a  matter  of  course.  The 
marquise  came  to  see  in  this  father  the  most  effectual 
hindrance  to  her  efforts  for  the  good  of  the  king.  He 
displayed,  she  said,  more  talent  for  evil  than  for  good ;  he 
made  the  royal  conscience  too  easy  and  comfortable ;  so 
long  as  he  was  there,  nothing  was  to  be  hoped  for.  More- 
over, as  is  generally  known,  he  had  inspired  the  king 
with  the  opinion  that  the  pious  (les  devots)  were  good  for 
nothing,  and  he  acted  upon  this  principle  in  the  disposal 
of  bishoprics  and  benefices.1  The  aversion  and  religious 
mistrust  of  the  marquise  gradually  extended  to  the  whole 
order,  the  more  so  that  she  was  aware  that  La  Chaise, 
although  a  genuine  son  and  representative  of  it,  was  upon 
many  points  of  a  somewhat  modified  type.  The  bishops 
whom  she  most  esteemed,  Godet,  Bossuet,  and  De  Noailles, 
strengthened  her  in  her  opinion  as  to  the  pernicious  charac- 
ter of  the  order.  In  a  letter  to  De  Noailles  she  relates  how 
Louis's  vicious  brother,  in  presence  of  herself  and  the  king, 
had  appealed  to  the  fact  that  his  Jesuit  confessor,  at  a  time 
when  he  had  been  living  an  even  more  immoral  life  than 
usual,  always  gave  him  absolution  and  urged  him  to  come 
to  communion ;  whereupon  she  had  rejoined  that  this  was 
the  very  cause  of  the  general  ill-will  against  the  order, 
namely,  that  its  members  administered  the  sacrament 
without  any  regard  as  to  the  moral  and  religious  condition 
of  those  whom  they  admitted  to  it.2  Supported  by  the 
bishops  and  by  public  opinion,  she  actually  presumed  for  a 
time  to  enter  into  a  conflict  with  this  most  powerful  body, 
chiefly  for  the  sake  of  the  king's  soul ;  she  even  succeeded 

1  '  Le  Pere  de  la  Chaise  ...  a  plus  de  talents  pour  le  mal  que  pour  le 
bien,  et  cela  vient  de  ce  que  les  intentions  ne  sont  pas  droites ;  peut-etre 
aussi  n'est-ce  que  faute  de  lumiere.  II  fit  de  grandes  doleances  au  roi  de 
n'etre  pas  sous  les  eveques.  II  surprend  sa  bonte  par  de  tels  discours ;  et 
ma  malice  repondit  en  face  que  ne  pouvant  etre  sous  eux,  il  ne  faudrait  pas 
se  declarer  leur  ennemi.'  Correspond,  de  Mme.  de  M.  iv.  180. 

-  Lettrcs,  iv.  315. 


396  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

in  diminishing  the  influence  of  La  Chaise  and  in  excluding 
the  Jesuits  from  her  beloved  Saint-Cyr.  In  this  she  was 
helped  by  the  general  disesteem  into  which  the  Jesuits  had 
fallen,  in  spite  of  their  possessing  at  that  time  among  them 
many  eminent  scholars  and  preachers ;  but  this  contempt 
and  hatred  were  heightened  by  the  fact  that  they  were  the 
objects  of  especial  favour  and  consideration  in  high  places. 
La  Chaise  himself  reported  to  Oliva,  the  general  of  the  order 
in  Kome,  that  in  France  the  Jesuits  were  altogether  in  the 
position  of  the  primitive  Christians ;  like  them,  they  were 
regarded  as  the  authors  of  all  mischief,  although  they  con- 
cerned themselves  simply  and  solely  with  the  conversion  of 
heretics  and  the  spread  of  the  faith.3  Oliva  comprehended 
the  serious  import  of  the  contempt  into  which  the  order  had 
fallen,  chiefly  on  account  of  the  misuse  of  the  confessional ; 
and  when  some  of  the  bishops  began  to  oppose,  or  to 
refuse,  the  granting  of  licences  to  Jesuits  to  receive  confes- 
sions, he  drew  up  an  apology  for  the  society  and  sent  it 
to  Louis.  He  represented  therein  that  the  suspicions 
directed  against  the  order,  in  its  most  practical  sphere  of 
influence,  touched  the  honour  of  popes,  emperors,  kings, 
and  countless  princes  and  notabilities  who  had  entrusted 
the  guidance  of  their  consciences  to  the  Jesuits,  and  be- 
sought the  king  to  vindicate  his  own  honour  and  that  of 
others,  upon  the  detractors  of  the  society.4  Their  oppo- 
nents thought  that  the  favour  in  which  the  Jesuits  stood 
spoke  plainly  enough  for  itself ;  it  was  only  needful  to  look 
closely  at  Versailles  and  other  courts. 

Meanwhile,  in  1695,  an  event  took  place  which  roused 
in  Madame  de  Maintenon  the  most  sanguine  hopes.  She 
succeeded  in  placing  De  Noailles,  Bishop  of  Chalons,  at  the 
head  of  the  French  Church  as  Archbishop  of  Paris.  She 
was  connected  with  him  by  family  ties,  his  nephew  having 
lately  married  her  niece.  He  would,  she  thought,  go  hand- 
in-hand  with  her  in  working  upon  the  king  ;  she  would  do 

J  Chantclauzc,  Lc  Pere  de  la  Chaise  (Paris,  1859),  81. 
*  Lettere  di  G.  P.  Oliva  (Bologna,  1704),  ii.  129. 


xn  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  397 

all  in  her  power  to  awake  and  to  foster  the  king's  confidence 
in  him  ;  whilst  he,  on  his  part,  would  in  intercourse  with 
the  king  give  weight  to  her  words  by  laying  stress  upon  her 
position,  and  upon  her  capacity  to  discuss  every  subject. 
More  particularly  in  her  struggle  with  the  Jesuits  he  would 
be  her  fellow-combatant,  together  with  the  Bishop  of  Char- 
tres.  '  The  Jesuits,'  she  says, '  declare  war  against  us  upon 
all  sides;  we  are  surrounded  by  their  spies.'5  She  only 
awaited  a  signal  from  the  archbishop  that  the  right  moment 
had  arrived,  to  set  to  work  seriously  to  procure  their  fall 6 — 
so  persuaded  was  she  of  the  corruptness  of  their  principles, 
and  of  the  pernicious  character  of  their  power  in  the  con- 
fessional. She  thought  that  as  long  as  the  king  retained  a 
Jesuit  as  the  guide  of  his  conscience,  she  would  labour  in 
vain  to  detach  him  from  his  mechanical  observances,  and 
to  bring  him  to  a  knowledge  of  himself.  But  her  hopes 
were  destined  to  be  wrecked.  The  Jesuits  soon  succeeded 
in  casting  a  suspicion  of  Jansenism  upon  De  Noailles,  and 
the  latter  was,  moreover,  far  too  weak  and  irresolute  a 
character  to  make  a  strong  ally.  Nevertheless  he  struggled 
hard ;  for  years  he  wrestled  wearily  with  the  powerful 
order,  here  and  there  victorious,  but  more  often  defeated 
and  giving  way,  in  the  endeavour  to  maintain  his  position. 
For  a  long  time  Bossuet  and  Madame  de  Maintenon  re- 
mained faithfully  at  his  side.  But  Bossuet  died  in  1704, 
and  the  marquise,  whose  numerous  letters  to  the  cardinal 
had  overflowed  with  expressions  of  devotion,  obedience, 
sympathy,  and  admiration,  became  henceforth  more  and 
more  estranged  from  him.  Godet,  her  director,  had  seen 
the  ghost  of  Jansenism  embodied  in  the  work  of  Quesnel, 
which  De  Noailles  had  approved,  and  had  addressed  letters 
to  her  filled  with  the  weightiest  charges  against  the  car- 
dinal for  sheltering  the  heretics.  Godet's  authority,  as 
usual,  prevailed,  and  she  therefore  gave  active  assistance  to 
Tellier,  the  king's  confessor,  in  persuading  the  king  that  a 

5  Correspond,  de  Mine,  de  Maintenon  (1866),  iv.  94. 

6  Ibid.  iv.  94,  95.     '  Quand  vous  voudrez  que  je  travaille  a  leur  mine.' 


398  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

bull  was  necessary.  The  result  of  this  was  to  fill  the  lives 
of  three  persons,  the  cardinal's,  the  king's,  and  her  own, 
with  grief  and  bitterness.  She  herself  lamented  the  fate 
which  obliged  her  to  break  with  De  Noailles  as  she  had 
already  done  with  Fenelon. 

The  assembly  of  the  clergy,  held  in  the  year  1700  in 
Saint-Germain-en-Laye,  was  another  memorable  event  in 
the  history  of  Madame  de  Maintenon.  It  was  entirely  due  to 
her  efforts  that  the  bishops,  headed  by  De  Noailles,  Bossuet, 
Godet,  and  Tellier  of  Eheims,  secured  liberty  sufficient  to 
enable  them  to  condemn  the  corrupt  morality  of  the  Jesuits 
and  the  doctrine  of  attrition.  Bossuet,  whose  vast  theolo- 
gical learning  made  him  the  soul  of  the  assembly,  and  who 
was  the  author  of  the  decrees  issued  by  it,  determined  not 
to  let  slip  the  fruits  of  so  bold  an  undertaking,  and  spent 
six  weeks  between  Versailles  and  Marly  in  visits  to  the  mar- 
quise for  the  sake  of  securing  her  co-operation.  In  his 
opinion  the  Jesuitical  doctrine  that  the  love  of  God  was  not 
necessary  to  salvation  was  the  most  dangerous  heresy  of 
the  age,  answerable  in  great  part  for  the  prevalent  growth 
of  immorality  and  irreligion ;  he  wished,  as  he  wrote  to 
De  Noailles,  to  devote  the  remainder  of  his  life  to  assisting 
him  to  combat  it.7  The  bishops  had  selected  from  the 
moral  and  theological  writings  of  the  order  a  list  of  the 
most  offensive  propositions  which  they  were  anxious  to  con- 
demn, and  the  utmost  endeavours  of  the  Jesuit  fathers  to 
avert  the  blow  were  this  time  in  vain.  And  the  king,  per- 
suaded by  the  marquise,  permitted  the  bishops  to  proceed 
to  the  condemnation  of  their  propositions  gathered  from  the 
Jesuitical  writings,  only  under  the  condition  that  the  names 
of  the  authors  should  be  concealed  and  the  honour  of  the 
order  remain  thus  unimpugned.  Louis,  profoundly  igno- 
rant in  matters  of  religion,  seems  not  in  the  least  to  have 
comprehended  the  question  of  attrition,  or  he  would  assur- 
edly not  have  permitted  a  doctrine  to  be  rejected  upon  the 

7  (Euvres,  ed.  de  Versailles,  xxxviii.  59. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  399 

strength  of  which  his  confessors  had  continually  granted 
him  absolution. 

When  the  marquise  reckoned  it  amongst  her  highest  and 
most  sacred  obligations  to  stand  beside  the  king — whose 
power  over  the  church,  as  Fenelon  remarked,  was  greater 
than  that  of  the  pope — as  the  protectress  of  the  church  and 
the  organ  and  mouthpiece  of  the  bishops,  she  was  but  obey- 
ing the  injunctions  of  her  spiritual  advisers  and  acting  in 
accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  king  himself.  In  one  of 
her  letters  she  says  that  as  often  as  the  discussion  in  coun- 
cil with  the  ministers  turned  upon  the  bishops,  the  king 
addressed  his  remarks  to  her.  No  parallel  can  be  found  in 
the  whole  of  history  to  the  marvellous  authority  possessed 
by  this  woman  in  the  church.  It  even  extended  through 
the  nuncio  and  certain  of  the  cardinals  to  Eome.  The 
popes  claimed  her  intervention  and  sent  letters  to  their 
beloved  daughter  full  of  the  warmest  expressions  of  praise. 
Clement  XI.  extolled  her  countless  and  brilliant  virtues  in 
terms  only  customary  upon  the  canonisation  of  the  de- 
parted. Well  might  it  be  said  that  her  ante-chamber  was 
the  council  hall  of  the  Gallican  Church,  so  many  were  the 
bishops  to  be  met  there.  Her  counsels  and  wishers  were, 
to  the  bishops,  commands.  Even  Fenelon  and  Bossuet 
submitted  to  her  will,  or  invoked  her  judgment  and  assist- 
ance in  theological  matters.  In  1703,  a  few  years  therefore 
after  all  intercourse  with  her  had  been  broken  off,  Fenelon 
observed,  '  If  only  Pere  la  Chaise  could  have  the  manage- 
ment of  half  the  bishops,  and  Madame  de  Maintenon  of  the 
other  half,  all  would  go  well.'  The  observation  referred  to 
a  fresh  blow  which  was  about  to  be  levelled  at  the  Janse- 
nists.  She  must  certainly  have  been  a  woman  of  strong 
mind,  not  to  become  intoxicated  by  the  incense  of  episcopal 
homage.  In  a  remarkable  letter,8  highly  seasoned  with  flat- 
tery, her  director,  Bishop  Godet,  assures  the  king  that  God 
himself  has  raised  up  this  woman,  so  largely  endowed  with 

9  Corresp.  ii.  508, 


400  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

the  gift  of  discernment  (discernement) ,  to  stand  by  him  as 
his  counsellor.  She  would  never  deceive  him  unless  she 
herself  were  deceived  ;  her  judgment  was  invariably  based 
upon  wisdom  and  justice.  It  might  be  supposed  that  a 
monarch  such  as  Louis,  the  very  incarnation  of  egotistic 
vanity,  would  resent  such  testimony.  That  this,  however, 
was  not  the  case  may  be  seen  in  a  paper  addressed  by 
Fenelon  to  Pope  Clement  XI.,  in  which  he  says  that  of  all 
the  French  bishops  the  Bishop  of  Chartres  was  held  in  the 
highest  esteem  not  only  by  Madame  de  Maintenon  but  by 
the  king  himself.  A  totally  unprecedented  event  now  took 
place.  The  pope,  knowing  the  king  to  be  in  such  sure  hands, 
sent  him,  in  the  strictest  confidence,  the  scheme  of  his 
anti-Jansenist  bull  Vineam  Domini,  for  criticism  and  ap- 
proval. Rome  and  Versailles,  after  much  stormy  conflict 
and  mutual  recrimination,  were  at  that  moment  upon  the 
best  of  terms.  What  this  was  worth,  if  not  to  France,  at 
least  to  the  dynasty,  was  manifest  in  1700,  when  King 
Charles  of  Spain  consulted  the  pope,  with  regard  to  the 
succession  to  the  Spanish  Monarchy,  as  to  whether 
he  ought  to  decide  in  favour  of  the  German  house  of 
Habsburg,  or  of  the  Bourbons.  The  pope,  or  rather  the 
congregation  of  cardinals  appointed  by  the  pope  on  his 
deathbed,  pronounced  the  best  thing  for  Spain  to  be  the 
nomination  of  a  French  prince  as  king ;  and  this  advice  was 
followed  at  Madrid. 9  No  one  had  in  reality  contributed  to 
this  result  more  than  Madame  de  Maintenon ;  the  connec- 
tion of  events  was  certainly  at  that  time  beyond  any  one's 
ken.  In  our  eyes  the  fair  fame  of  Madame  de  Maintenon 
is  obscured  by  the  fact  that  the  immediate  result  was  a  war 
which  lasted  thirteen  years,  and  which  led  France,  alone, 
into  collision  with  the  superior  forces  of  other  combined 
powers. 

The  marquise  exerted  herself  to  wrest,  if  not  all,  at  least 
some  of  the  nominations  to  bishoprics  out  of  the  hands  of 

9  Klopp,  Der  Fall  des  Hauses  Stuart,  viii.  510.    In  a  report  from  Lambert, 
the  imperial  ambassador,  to  his  court. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  401 

the  Jesuits,  because  the  order  took  advantage  of  this 
patronage  to  fill  the  episcopal  sees  with  its  own  devoted 
adherents.  She  usually  selected  her  bishops  from  what  was 
still  at  that  time  a  very  limited  circle  of  men,  viz.  the 
Sulpicians ;  but  her  candidates  found  general  approbation, 
and  at  the  end  of  her  career  she  thought  herself  justified  in 
boasting  that  she  had  not  given  to  the  church  a  single 
unworthy  bishop. 

One  of  the  tasks  imposed  upon  her  by  the  Sulpician 
directors  of  her  conscience  was  that  of  leading  back  the 
king,  and  through  him  the  whole  French  Church,  into 
complete  subjection  to  the  papal  chair.  For  this  purpose 
it  was  necessary  to  cancel  the  authority  of  the  famous 
declaration  of  1682  as  to  the  relation  of  the  French  Church 
to  the  papacy.  This  declaration,  in  conformity  with  the 
decrees  of  the  Councils  of  Constance  and  Basle,  which  the 
popes  themselves  had  confirmed,  repudiated  the  theory  of 
papal  infallibility  on  questions  of  faith  and  morals,  and 
declared  the  power  of  the  sovereign  pontiff  to  have  been 
limited  by  the  laws  of  the  primitive  church. 

During  the  whole  of  his  reign  Louis  was  oscillating  in  his 
sentiments  towards  the  papacy,  and  he  allowed  himself  to 
be  drawn,  partly  by  circumstances,  partly  through  personal 
influences,  sometimes  to  the  Gallican,  sometimes  to  the 
Eoman  side.  Saturated  as  he  was  with  absolutist  princi- 
ples, and  accustomed  to  think  of  the  church  as  a  power 
possessing  the  right  of  enforcing  its  commands  by  temporal 
penalties,  a  despotic  and  infallible  pope  must  have  appeared 
to  him  perfectly  conceivable.  But  the  two  cardinals,  Kiche- 
lieu  in  his  '  Testament,'  and  Mazarin  in  his  verbal  instruc- 
tions, had  warned  him  to  withstand  the  Curia  as  apt  to 
found  a  new  claim  upon  every  concession  ;  and  in  his 
Memoirs  he  likewise  appeals  to  his  own  experience  in  the 
matter.  The  ministers,  the  parliaments,  all  the  jurists,  the 
majority  of  the  theologians  at  the  universities,  were  Gal- 
lican in  feeling,  and  rejected  papal  infallibility,  which  Eome 
herself  had  declared  to  be  inseparably  connected  with  the 

D  D 


402  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  Xir 

right  of  deposing  kings  and  of  absolving  peoples  from  their 
allegiance.  It  was  this  fact  which,  as  Fenelon  observed, 
weighed  heavily  with  the  king.  Nevertheless,  the  power  of 
the  marquise  gradually  made  itself  felt  here  also  ;  she 
worked  upon  him  so  effectually  that,  according  to  D'Agues- 
seau's  expression,  he  trembled  at  the  very  name  of  the 
pope.  At  the  same  time  his  wife,  directed  by  Godet  and 
Fenelon,  exerted  herself  to  raise  suspicion  in  his  mind  as 
to  his  ministers,  whose  advice  upon  questions  of  church 
policy  was  founded  upon  principles  of  worldly  wisdom.  She 
herself  narrates  how  she  used  all  her  arts  to  do  this  in  the 
case  of  one  of  Louis's  cleverest  statesmen,  the  Chancellor 
Pontchartrain.  She  succeeded  so  far  that  the  chancellor 
resigned,  and  withdrew  to  a  cloister  of  the  Oratorians.  The 
most  effectual  means  in  such  a  case  was  to  give  out  that 
the  man  was  infected  with  Jansenist  leanings.  Whilst  acting 
upon  Godet's  suggestions  she  felt  no  anxiety  of  conscience, 
and  regarded  it  as  permissible  even  to  deceive  the  king  for 
his  own  benefit,  and  to  conceal  important  facts  from  him. 

It  has  not  been  duly  taken  into  account  that  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  four  Gallican  propositions  of  1682  was  a 
result  of  the  Jesuit  policy  directed  against  the  Jansenists. 
Upon  the  strength  of  the  royal  prerogative  all  dioceses 
were,  during  vacancy,  placed  under  the  royal  patronage,  and 
afforded  to  the  confessor  La  Chaise  and  his  intimate  ally 
De  Harlay,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  the  opportunity  of  filling 
the  vacancies  with  the  partisans  of  the  order  and  of  its 
theological  views.  The  pope  himself  had  the  reputation, 
not  without  foundation,  of  being  inclined  towards  the  Jan- 
senists, and  of  being  therefore  unfavourably  disposed  towards 
the  Jesuits ;  whilst  declaring  that  there  were  no  Jansenists 
in  France,  he  cherished  the  design  of  making  the  most 
distinguished  theologian  and  leader  of  the  Jansenists,  the 
famous  Arnauld,  a  cardinal.  The  Jesuits  therefore,  under 
the-guidance  of  Pere  La  Chaise,1  took  the  most  active  in- 

1  Compare  what  Fleury  has  reported  as  an  eye-witness  in  his  Opuscules, 
p.  214,  published  by  Emery,  Paris,  1818. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  408 

terest  in  the  propositions,  and,  in  startling  contradiction 
with  their  former  doctrines  and  aims,  suddenly  became 
Gallican,  wrote  against  the  papal  system,  and  composed 
historical  works  with  this  intention,  which  were  forthwith 
condemned  in  Eome. 

Madame  de  Maintenon  welcomed  with  feminine  instinct 
a  doctrine,  which  to  theologians,  jurists,  statesmen,  and 
historians  seemed  both  repulsive  and  unacceptable,  as  being 
to  her  mind  both  comforting  and  agreeable ;  did  she  not 
already  believe  in  the  infallibility  of  her  director?  She 
therefore,  according  to  D'Aguesseau's  statement,  summoned 
the  whole  of  her  influence  to  her  aid,  day  by  day,  exhorting 
and  urging  the  king  to  throw  over  the  declaration.  Under 
Godet's  instruction  she  represented  to  the  king  that  the 
Jansenists  availed  themselves  of  the  propositions  to  shelter 
their  teaching  from  the  censure  of  Eome.  The  king,  too, 
at  length  discovered  that  the  political  situation,  with  the 
question  of  the  Spanish  succession  daily  impending,  pointed 
to  the  advisability  of  a  reconciliation  with  the  pope.2  A 
friendly  agreement  was  consequently  arrived  at  in  1693, 
that  the  king  should  drop  the  obligatory  character  of  the 
propositions,  which  made  their  teaching  compulsory,  and 
should  permit  the  newly-appointed  bishops,  who  had  taken 
a  part  in  drawing  up  the  propositions,  to  make  a  statement 
of  submission,  without  directly  abjuring  the  Gallican  teach- 
ing. Yet  again  in  1697  Louis  caused  his  ambassador,  the 
Cardinal  Forbin-Janson,  to  declare  that  he  would  not  tole- 
rate the  papal  infallibility  being  taught  in  France,3  and  the 
Curia  was  obliged  for  the  time  to  content  itself  with  the 
meagre  advantage  it  had  gained,  and  silently  to  permit  the 
Gallican  doctrine  with  its  consequences  to  predominate  in 
all  the  theological  schools  down  to  the  time  of  the  Eevolu- 
tion.  In  this  instance  bishops  and  clergy,  tribunals  and 
statesmen,  worked  so  unanimously  together,  and  public 

2  OSuvres,  xiii.  217. 

'  Floquet,  Bossuet  de  1670  a  1682  (Paris,  1864),  p.  572,  from  the  records 
of  the  Paris  archives. 

D  D  2 


404  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

opinion  upon  the  point  was  so  strong,  that  even  the  Jesuits 
and  Sulpicians  were  forced  to  submit,  and  to  abstain  at 
least  from  any  open  assault  upon  the  doctrine.  But  in 
Eome,  as  Polignac,  afterwards  cardinal,  reported  in  the 
year  1707,  the  French  clergy  were  regarded  with  even  less 
favour  than  any  of  the  German  Protestants.4  At  Kome  it 
was  well  known,  and  the  marquise  was  equally  aware,  that 
one  can  arrive  by  circuitous  ways  at  that  which  is  not  to 
be  reached  by  the  direct  road,  and  that  theory  may  slowly 
but  surely  be  undermined  by  practice.  Jansenism  afforded 
to  her  as  well  as  to  Kome  the  desired  opportunity. 

As  early  as  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  any 
men  and  women  in  France  in  whom  earnest  piety  and  purity 
of  life  were  perceptible,  and  who  were  known  by  a  stricter 
standard  of  morality,  were  counted  as  Jansenists.  Such 
people  usually  held  aloof  from  court,  or,  when  there,  were 
excluded  from  all  favours  and  benefits :  neglected  at  first,  and 
afterwards  persecuted.  Jansenism  was  nevertheless  rapidly 
increasing.  It  laid  hold  upon  all  ecclesiastical  bodies  with 
very  few  exceptions,  it  predominated  altogether  in  theological 
literature;  all  public  schools  that  were  not  immediately 
under  the  Jesuits,  or,  as  in  Spam,  under  the  Inquisition, 
held  Jansenist  opinions,  at  least  so  far  as  the  majority  of 
their  theologians  were  concerned.  In  Eome  itself  this 
teaching  was  strongly  represented  amongst  the  cardinals, 
and  letters  from  Eome  often  reached  Paris  and  Lyons 
encouraging  those  addressed  to  stand  firm  in  the  doctrines 
officially  prescribed.  The  long  series  of  papal  decisions 
issued  against  them  seemed  rather  to  promote  than  to 
hinder  their  propagation.  Fenelon  himself,  whose  letters 
for  twenty  years  teem  with  lamentations  and  warnings  on 
the  subject  of  the  ceaseless  progress  of  this  heresy,  observes 
that  it  alone  has  already  cost  the  church  more  preventive 
and  precautionary  measures  and  damnatory  decrees  than 

4  Noorden,  Eiirop.  Geschichte,  iii.  134,  from  the  records  of  the  archives 
des  affaires  dtrangdres. 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  405 

all  other  heresies  put  together.  He  then  proceeds  to  ex- 
plain the  surprising  fruitlessness  of  the  result,  by  empha- 
tically declaring,  and  in  this  he  was  fully  in  accord  with 
the  Jansenists  themselves,  that  nobody  knew — now  that  the 
controversy  and  the  condemnations  had  gone  on  for  sixty 
years — in  what  the  erroneous  doctrine  exactly  consisted ; 
for  the  Eoman  court  stuck  fast  to  the  principle  of  giving  no 
definition  of  what  ought  to  be  believed,  so  that  the  same 
doctrine  which  it  apparently  rejected  in  one  form,  was 
unhesitatingly  accepted  at  Kome  itself  when  expressed  in 
other  though  synonymous  terms.  Besides,  it  was  an  open 
secret  that  in  Kome,  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  pope, 
a  party  existed,  including  even  cardinals,  which  was  con- 
stantly favourable  to  the  Jansenists  and  working  in  their 
interests.  Thus  chaotic  confusion  prevailed  in  all  minds.5 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  both  camps,  amongst  the  Jansen- 
ists as  well  as  amongst  their  opponents  the  Jesuits,  and  the 
theologians  of  Molinist  tendencies,  the  conviction  was  the 
same,  viz.  that  what  was  called  Jansenism,  when  confined 
to  the  doctrine  of  grace,  was  an  impalpable  ghost,  a  phan- 
tom, as  it  was  said  at  the  time,  and  as  had  been  proved  in 
writings  which  were  never  refuted.  For  the  same  thing 
which  under  one  name  was  condemned,  was  under  another, 
as  the  teaching  of  the  Thomists  or  Augustinians,  declared  to 
be  perfectly  orthodox.  The  best  theologians,  the  most  intelli- 
gent men  of  both  parties,  were  agreed  as  to  this ;  Fenelon 
and  even  the  Jesuits,  not  less  than  Arnauld,  Nicole,  and 
Pascal.  Even  popes,  such  as  Innocent  XI.,  and  afterwards 
Benedict  XIV.,6  the  latter  only  verbally,  acknowledged  to 
holding  the  same  opinion.  The  later  papal  decisions  of 
Benedict  XIII.  and  XIV.  settled  this  point.  But  impor- 

5  The  Archbishop  of  Mechlin,  De  Precipiano,  belonged  to  those  who  saw 
in  the  arbitrary  decrees  of  the  two  kings  of  France  and  Spain  the  only  means 
of  rescue  for  the  church  from  the  encroachments  of  Jansenism.  Nothing, 
he  says  in  a  memorial  drawn  up  by  him,  is  to  be  hoped  for  from  Rome,  since 
the  pope  (Innocent  XII.)  protects  the  congregations,  and  in  these  the  friends 
and  patrons  of  the  heterodox  opinions  predominate.  Gachard,  La  Bclgiqua 
soils  Philippe  V.  (Bruxelles,  1867),  p.  42. 

fi  The  testimony  of  the  Roman  Jesuit  Cordara,     See  my  Bcitragc,  iii,  9, 


406  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

tant  hierarchical  interests  were  connected  with  the  phantom, 
and  above  all  the  imperative  necessity  of  never  making  a 
retrograde  step,  nor  any  acknowledgment  of  mistake  or 
error.  Besides,  the  Jesuits  were  determined  that  so  tren- 
chant a  weapon  of  assault,  so  effectual  an  instrument  of 
ecclesiastical  government,  ought  not  to  be  abandoned.  For 
fifty  years  it  had  rendered  good  service  to  the  order,  broken 
the  power  of  numerous  opponents,  or  forced  them  into 
silence,  and  placed  the  Jesuits  in  complete  possession  of  the 
public  schools  and  other  institutions  of  learning,  and  made 
them  the  dreaded  censors  of  all  theologians,  and  particularly 
of  all  the  religious  orders  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Mo- 
linists,  were  infected  by  the  poison  of  the  new  heresy.  In 
Kome,  however,  the  method  of  procedure  without  any  for- 
mal affirmation  of  church  doctrine,  contrary  to  the  custom 
of  the  primitive  church,  was  steadfastly  adhered  to  in  the 
questions  of  predestination  and  grace.  Throughout  the 
wearisome  dispute  such  affirmation  was  ever  carefully 
avoided ;  only  certain  propositions,  drawn  from  some  book, 
were  condemned.  And  just  because  nobody  could  tell  in 
what  sense  such  propositions  as  those  taken  from  the 
works  of  Jansenius  or  Quesnel  were  to  be  rejected,  did  they 
become  valuable  ;  for  the  whole  question  was  turned  into 
one  of  blind  obedience  and  submission,  without  previous 
investigation.  The  Jesuit  D'Aubenton,  who  as  Tellier's 
agent  in  Eome  had  undertaken  to  procure  that  the  passages 
selected  from  Quesnel' s  book  should  be  condemned,  repeat- 
edly informed  his  employer  that  at  Eome  everything  turned 
upon  the  papal  infallibility ;  to  get  this  passed  whilst  the 
king  was  ready  to  impose,  by  force  of  arms,  upon  the 
bishops  and  clergy  the  unquestioning  acceptance  of  the 
papal  constitution,  was  the  only  object ;  the  theological 
aspect  of  the  matter  was  neither  especially  considered  nor 
rightly  understood. 

Madame  de  Maintenon  firmly  believed  that  Jansenism 
was  pernicious  heresy ;  in  this  matter  she  thought  and  acted 
in  full  accord  with  the  confessors  La  Chaise  and  Teliier ; 


XII 


OF  FKENCH  HISTOKY  407 


she  strengthened  the  king  in  his  delusion,  and  fanned  the 
flames  of  persecution.  She  knew  perfectly  that  the  charge 
of  Jansenism  was  the  means  daily  employed  to  suppress 
rivals,  and  to  exclude  sincere  and  religious  men  from  all 
dignities  and  offices  in  the  state  and  church.  She  herself 
says  that  most  men  and  women  who  became  earnest  in  re- 
ligion were  at  once  decried  as  Jansenists.  Yet  evening  after 
evening  she  read  to  the  king  passages  from  the  papers  that 
had  been  seized,  belonging  to  the  Oratorian  Quesnel,  in 
order  to  keep  alive  his  zeal  against  the  silently  smouldering 
*  cabal.'  At  that  time  '  cabals  '  existed  everywhere,  and  so, 
consequently,  did  suspicion  and  espionage  ;  there  was  a  Pro- 
testant and  a  Cartesian  cabal,  cabals  of  the  followers  of 
Arnauld  and  of  Quesnel,  of  the  Jesuits  and  of  the  Sulpicians. 
Even  she  herself,  Madame  de  Maintenon,  had  her  own  cabal 
in  common  with  a  few  bishops ;  she  wrote  in  cipher  and 
received  visits  from  them  which  had  to  be  kept  secret,  in 
order  that  they  might  not  be  employed  as  weapons  against 
her  by  the  Jesuits  who  were  about  the  king. 

A  widely  diffused  and  much-esteemed  book  of  devotion 
by  Quesnel,  '  Considerations  upon  the  New  Testament,'  had 
been  selected  as  a  holocaust  at  this  time — a  book  which  had 
received  the  approbation  of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  Cardi- 
nal de  Noailles,  and  in  commendation  and  defence  of  which 
Bossuet,  the  foremost  theologian  amongst  the  French 
bishops,  had  written  a  pamphlet  shortly  before  his  death. 
The  Bishop  of  Chartres,  the  oracle  of  the  marquise,  pro- 
nounced it  on  the  contrary  to  be  saturated  with  heresy  and 
highly  mischievous,  and  his  death,  she  declared,  was  caused 
by  grief  that  his  episcopal  friends  could  not  be  brought  to 
condemn  it.  The  confessor  and  the  marquise  now  persuaded 
the  king  that  Jansenism  was  taking  such  strong  hold  on 
all  sides,  that  a  fresh  papal  bull  to  condemn  it  was  an  im- 
mediate necessity.  Louis  urged  the  pope  to  issue  one 
without  delay,  but  Clement  XI.  only  yielded  to  the  request 
upon  the  king  promising  to  enforce  unconditional  submission 
to  the  bull  from  both  clergy  and  laity  by  all  the  means  and 


408  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

weapons  of  his  sovereign  power.  Thus  was  prepared  a 
deadly  blow  to  the  Gallican  system,  a  system  based  upon 
the  admission  that  bishops  possessed  the  right  of  taking 
part  in  the  examination  and  decision  of  dogmatic  questions. 
A  bull  was  now  issued  from  Rome,  condemning  101  propo- 
sitions taken  out  of  Quesnel's  book,  and  designedly  drawn 
up  so  as  to  contain  a  mass  of  obscurities  and  uncertainties 
which  would  inevitably  stir  up  endless  controversy.  Thus 
a  conflagration  was  kindled  which  was  not  to  be  extinguished, 
and  was  destined  long  after  Louis's  lifetime  to  continue  to 
waste  the  best  powers  of  the  French  Church,  and,  by  the 
ruin  which  it  caused,  to  assist  in  preparing  the  way  for  the 
Revolution. 

Madame  de  Maintenon  hailed  the  advent  of  the  bull 
with  feelings  of  triumph  ;  at  last  that  had  come  to  pass 
which  her  '  saintly  bishop' — so  she  was  in  the  habit  of  calling 
Godet  after  his  death  in  1707 — had  so  earnestly  desired. 
But  with  surprise  and  terror  she  now  recognised  at  the  head 
of  the  heretics  the  very  man  whom  she  had  made  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris,  with  whom  for  many  years  she  had  been 
intimately  associated  in  advancing  the  interests  of  the 
church,  and  for  whom  she  had  previously  wished  at  any 
price  to  secure  the  full  confidence  of  the  king,  that  he  might 
counteract  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits.  She  now  com- 
plained that  the  archbishop  was  shortening  the  life  of  the 
king  and  embittering  her  own.  She  lived  to  witness  the 
reaction  in  the  time  of  the  Regency,  and  such  was  the  dis- 
astrous state  of  confusion  in  which  she  left  the  Church  of 
France,  that  it  must  be  owned  that  her  conduct  contributed 
more  than  Voltaire's  mockery  and  the  assaults  of  the  Free- 
thinkers to  hasten  the  coming  of  the  Revolution,  and  to 
imprint  upon  it  that  character  of  hostility  to  religion  which 
still  continues  to  exist  in  the  present  day,  unenfeebled,  if 
not  increasing  in  strength. 

A  dark  shadow  falls  here  upon  the  marquise,  and  her 
influence  was  in  a  high  degree  injurious  to  the  state — all 
the  more  so  that  it  strengthened  a  characteristic  of  the 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  409 

king  already  mentioned,  his  aversion  for  persons  of  superior 
intellect.  Mindful  of  the  exhortations  of  the  Bishop  of 
Chartres,  she  held  it  to  be  her  duty  to  see  that  only  men 
of  earnest  piety  should  be  put  into  government  posts,  and 
still  further  that  none  who  could  possibly  be  suspected  of 
Jansenism  or  of  sympathy  with  that  school  should  attain 
to  any  position  of  importance.  Upon  this  point,  the  triad — 
the  king,  his  wife,  and  the  confessor — were  unanimous  and 
watchful.  Two  poets,  such  as  Kacine  and  Boileau,  who  had 
leanings  that  way,  might  at  a  pinch  be  tolerated  ;  but  to 
ruin  a  man  at  court  it  sufficed,  as  the  Marechal  d'Harcourt 
says,  to  give  out  that  he  was  a  Jansenist.  The  conse- 
quences were,  first,  that  many  unprincipled  aspirants,  under 
the  mask  of  dogmatic  zeal  against  the  doctrines  which  were 
banished  from  the  court,  wheedled  themselves  into  office 
and  were  appointed  to  benefices ;  and,  secondly,  that  the 
best  and  ablest  men  were  excluded  if  Augustinian  or  Jan- 
senist opinions  were  once  imputed  to  them.  To  have  for 
confessor  any  one  belonging  to  one  of  the  religious  orders 
supposed  to  be  thus  tainted  was  quite  enough  to  rouse  sus- 
picion. Within  the  circle  of  the  court  only  two  societies 
were  now  accepted  as  altogether  orthodox,  the  Jesuits,  and 
the  still  small  body  of  the  Sulpicians.  Into  every  other 
order  the  poison,  according  to  Fenelon  and  others,  had 
penetrated.  It  was  asserted,  besides,  that  all  the  secular 
clergy  who  had  studied  at  the  Sorbonne  had  imbibed  the 
interdicted  opinions.  A  flood  of  heresy  had  broken  over 
France  in  the  last  fifty  years,  and  was  continually  rising, 
and  in  Madame  de  Maintenon's  opinion,  which  had  been 
formed  upon  the  teaching  of  the  Sulpicians,  this  heresy  was 
the  most  dangerous  that  had  ever  arisen  in  the  church. 
She  did  her  utmost  therefore  with  the  king — who,  on  reli- 
gious questions,  was  always  prone  to  take  the  side  of  violence 
and  persecution — to  embitter  his  feelings  and  fill  him  with 
suspicion,  leading  him  to  multiply  the  warrants  for  im- 
prisonment, deprivations,  and  exile. 


410  THE  MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

The  life  of  this  woman,  when  looked  at  as  a  whole,  pre- 
sents indeed  a  tragic  spectacle.  The  best  and  most  cherished 
of  her  hopes  and  plans  were  wrecked,  some  before  and  some 
after  her  death.  She  lived  to  see  the  king,  her  husband, 
who  for  thirty  years  had  been  the  idol  of  France,  descend 
into  the  grave  laden  with  universal  hatred  ;  his  death  was 
hailed  as  a  deliverance  by  the  country.  As  she  survived 
the  king  by  some  years,  she  also  saw,  from  her  retreat  in 
Saint- Cyr,  how  the  Kegency  in  almost  all  points  strove  for 
the  very  opposite  to  that  at  which  Louis  and  herself  had 
aimed.  Concern  for  the  families  of  the  royal  princes  and 
efforts  at  peace-making  had  for  years  cost  her  infinite  time 
and  trouble,  and  now  most  of  them  had  been  snatched 
away  in  the  flower  of  their  age,  and  the  rest  were  at  variance 
amongst  themselves  !  Her  favourite,  the  Due  de  Maine, 
whom  she  had  latterly  again  sought  to  place  at  the  head  of 
affairs,  was  excluded  from  them,  condemned  to  inactivity, 
and,  besides,  had  not  fulfilled  as  a  man  the  hopes  which  his 
brilliant  gifts  had  raised  in  his  boyhood.  His  imprisonment 
for  high  treason,  so  Elisabeth  Charlotte  asserts,  hastened 
her  death.  With  conscientious  care  and  motherly  tender- 
ness the  marquise  had  superintended  the  education  of  the 
Savoyard  princess  who  had  been  brought  at  eleven  years  of 
age  to  the  court  as  the  bride  of  the  dauphin  ;  she  hoped  to 
leave  behind  her  a  worthy  queen  for  France  ;  but  in  1712 
the  princess  had  been  already  torn  from  her  and  from  the 
nation.  The  Duke  of  Burgundy,  Fenelon's  pupil,  in  her 
eyes  as  well  as  in  those  of  the  nation, was  destined  to  make 
amends  for  and  repair  the  faults  of  his  grandfather's  reign ; 
but  within  six  days  he  followed  his  wife  to  the  grave.  Her 
affections  had  been  so  often  deceived,  so  many  ties  of  friend- 
ship which  she  had  formed  had  been  snapped  asunder, 
that  on  her  deathbed  she  said  to  her  truest  pupil  and  friend 
Glapion,  that  she  was  the  only  being  who  had  remained 
faithful  to  her,  and  had  not  disappointed  her. 

The  years  which  she  had  spent  in  continual  endeavours 
to  awaken  the  soul  of  her  husband  to  a  purer  and  truer 


XII 


OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  41] 


religion  had  been  spent  in  vain.  Louis  remained  to  the 
last  what  the  order  to  whose  guidance  he  had  been  com- 
mitted as  a  child  had  made  him.  But  since  the  authorities 
whom  the  marquise  reverenced — popes,  bishops,  preachers, 
even  her  oracle  Godet — were  unanimous  in  praise  of  Louis's 
piety  and  faith,  she  too  abated  her  earlier  and  loftier  ex- 
pectations, and  by  the  time  the  great  war  broke  out  in  1701 
was  ready  to  imagine  that  Providence  would  give  victory 
over  the  heretics  into  the  hand  of  the  devout  and  orthodox 
king.  When  the  reverse  took  place,  and  year  after  year 
crushing  blows  fell  upon  the  armies  of  Louis,  then,  as  we 
have  already  said,  she  almost  doubted  the  divine  guidance 
of  the  universe ;  it  seemed  to  her  incomprehensible  that  her 
pious  husband  should  be  defeated  by  heretical  powers.  She 
calmed  herself  by  degrees  with  the  thought  that  the  disasters 
and  the  general  misery  were  punishments  for  the  vices  of 
the  nation  and  the  sins  of  the  king.  Louis  himself  acknow- 
ledged with  tears  that  he  had  deserved  his  misfortunes,  and 
that  he  recognised  therein  the  chastening  hand  of  God. 
And  yet  it  was  beyond  her  power  to  perceive  that  her  own 
mischievous  counsels — the  recognition  of  James  III.  and  the 
persecution  of  the  Protestants — had  most  effectually  helped 
to  prepare  the  supremacy  of  England  and  the  rise  of  the 
Protestant  powers. 

Madame  de  Maintenon,  immersed  as  she  was  in  active 
business  and  daily  brought  into  contact  with  the  theory 
and  practice  of  government,  would  certainly  not  have 
endorsed  the  opinion  of  Fenelon,  '  Despotism  is  the  source 
of  all  our  evils.'  It  was  she  who  aggravated  the  yoke  of 
despotism  by  countenancing  the  system  of  persecution  which 
her  husband  introduced,  and  who,  in  the  interests  of  an 
orthodoxy  of  Godet's  style,  took  good  care  that  victims 
should  not  be  wanting,  that  acts  of  violence  should  be  mul- 
tiplied, and  that  the  prisons  should  be  filled  with  priests. 
She  did  not  reflect  that  such  tyranny  would,  like  a  poison, 
penetrate  into  other  departments  of  the  administration. 

She  had  allowed  herself  to  be  persuaded  that  in  med- 


412  THE   MOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xii 

dling  with  ecclesiastical  affairs  she  was  fulfilling  a  mission 
from  on  high.  Yet  she  subsequently  appears  to  have  felt 
some  remorse  for  her  conduct  in  this  respect,  for  she  wrote 
to  her  friend  the  Princess  Orsini  that  she  had  interfered 
more  than  enough  with  the  appointments  of  bishops.  Here, 
what  she  built  up  with  one  hand  she  demolished  with  the 
other.  It  was  her  pet  piece  of  handiwork,  the  bull  Unir/eni- 
tus,  which  became  the  means  of  degrading  the  bishops  into 
convenient  tools  of  the  Jesuits,  and  of  exposing  them  to 
universal  derision  by  their  discords  and  alternate  utterance 
of  complaints  and  anathemas.  During  the  first  years  of 
her  rule  the  French  Church  stood  at  the  height  of  its 
theological  prosperity  ;  according  to  Bossuet's  testimony  it 
possessed  more  learned  theologians  than  all  other  countries 
put  together.  But  about  the  year  1715  Louis,  with  his  wife 
and  confessor,  had  already  brought  about  its  decline.  The 
creatures  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  her  Cardinals  Eohan 
and  Bissy,  and  their  successors  Dubois  and  Fleury,  worked, 
in  combination  with  the  Sulpicians  and  Jesuits,  all  in  the 
same  direction.  By  the  middle  of  the  century  things  had 
gone  so  far  that  the  Sorbonne  was  reduced  to  a  shadow,  and 
that  the  French  clergy,  when  the  time  came  for  the  struggle 
with  the  gathering  hosts  of  the  enemies  of  Christianity, 
presented  a  pitiful  figure  of  unlearned  impotence. 

In  the  conversations  that  are  recorded  between  the 
marquise  and  the  ladies  of  Saint-Cyr,  whole  pages  may  be 
picked  out  which  seem  like  adaptations  of  the  words  which 
the  poet,  in  '  Faust,'  puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  Gretchen  : 

Doch  Alles,  was  dazu  mich  trieb, 
Gott !  war  so  gut,  ach  !  war  so  lieb. 

At  the  end  of  her  career,  a  few  weeks  before  the  king's 
death,  she  wrote  to  her  confessor :  '  I  have  with  the  best 
intentions  committed  so  many  faults  that  I  can  no  longer 
venture  to  meddle  with  anything ; ' 7  yet  she  straightway 
sets  to  work  to  persuade  the  king  to  make  a  will  disposing 

7  Cvrrcsp.  (1859)  xii.  685, 


XII 


OF  HiENCH  HISTORY  418 


of  the  succession  to  the  throne,  and  makes  a  draft  of  it 
with  the  aid  of  Voisin,  whom  she  had  advanced  to  the  im- 
portant dignity  of  chancellor  from  the  post  of  steward  at 
Saint-Cyr.  This  will  gave  the  title  of  regent  to  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  but  practically  made  him  a  mere  cipher,  and 
disposed  of  the  succession  in  a  manner  subversive  of  the 
fundamental  laws  of  the  kingdom  by  making  the  sons  of 
Madame  de  Montespan,  whom  Louis  had  already  legitima- 
tised  and  thrust  upon  the  list  of  princes  of  the  blood,  also 
capable  of  succeeding  to  the  throne.  This  will,  as  is  well 
known,  was  after  the  king's  death  at  once  set  aside,  and 
her  favourite,  the  object  of  her  hopes,  deprived  of  all 
influence  in  the  government. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  be  allowed  to  compare  this  remark- 
able Frenchwoman  with  a  German,  no  less  a  person  than 
the  Empress  Maria  Theresa.  Each  was  an  ornament  to 
her  sex,  each  combined  with  a  masculine  intellect  and  judg- 
ment, all  the  feminine  virtues ;  but  the  one  ruled  and  issued 
her  commands  with  the  authority  which  was  her  birthright, 
the  other,  under  the  concealment  of  a  strange  name,  upon 
account  of  which  the  Duke  of  Villeroi  nicknamed  her  the 
mole,  was  compelled  in  most  cases  to  arrive  at  her  point  by 
circuitous  and  covert  paths,  to  petition,  to  persuade,  to 
negotiate,  where  a  word  from  the  empress  would  have 
commanded  obedience  upon  all  sides.  Each  gave  herself 
up  wholly  and  unreservedly,  Maria  Theresa  to  the  state, 
Madame  de  Maintenon  to  her  lord  and  master,  who  could 
say  with  reason  '  I  am  the  state.'  Each,  lending  a  too 
willing  ear  to  the  suggestions  of  blind  guides,  approved  or 
organised  religious  oppression  or  persecution.  Both  were 
pious  and  enthusiastic  in  the  doctrines  and  the  service  of  their 
church,  but  the  Frenchwoman,  stifling  her  own  judgment, 
knew  only  how  to  follow  implicitly  the  guides  of  her  con- 
science, whilst  the  Austrian  princess  tolerated  no  interference 
in  political  matters  from  her  confessor,  and  even  in  eccle- 
siastical affairs  often  followed  other  counsels.  Each  was 


414  THE  HOST  INFLUENTIAL  WOMAN  xn 

convinced  that  she  had  received  a  mission  from  God  and 
was  an  instrument  in  His  hands,  but  the  conviction  opera- 
ted upon  each  in  a  different  manner.  To  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon's  excitable  and  highly  sensitive  nature  every  misfor- 
tune, every  complication,  was  a  source  of  painful  anxiety, 
frequently  even  of  physical  suffering ;  Maria  Theresa,  on 
the  contrary,  thanks  to  her  convictions,  attained,  as  she  tells 
us  in  her  memoirs,  even  under  the  most  distressing  circum- 
stances, to  entire  peace  of  mind  as  if  nothing  in  the  world 
could  touch  her.  Both  suffered  much  from  the  people 
nearest  t.o  them  being  governed  by  wholly  different  views  : 
the  empress  through  her  son  and  co-regent  Joseph;  the 
marquise  through  her  husband.  Both,  as  usually  happens 
in  the  case  of  imaginative  and  highly  sensitive  women, 
carried  their  wishes,  which  became  hopes,  their  personal 
sympathies  and  aversions,  far  too  much  into  politics. 
Both  did  much  mischief  in  consequence :  the  empress,  by 
making  her  daughter  in  Paris  the  tool  of  the  Austrian 
house  policy ;  the  marquise,  by  inducing  her  husband  at 
a  most  critical  moment  to  recognise  James  III.  and  thus 
to  break  the  peace.  Both  women,  finally,  left  a  mark 
upon  the  world's  history,  but  of  a  very  different  kind.  The 
memory  of  the  great  empress  is  still  revered  by  millions, 
and  outshines  that  of  any  of  the  male  representatives  of  the 
house  of  Habsburg  who  have  worn  the  two  crowns.  Any 
remembrance  of  the  founder  of  Saint-Cyr  has  long  since 
been  wiped  out  of  the  minds  of  the  people,  although  her 
letters  will  continue  to  hold  a  prominent  place  in  literature 
beside  those  of  her  friend  Madame  de  Sevigne.  By  the 
students  of  history  she  is  sometimes  lauded,  sometimes 
blamed.  The  fatal  effects  of  their  actions  have  extended  to 
the  present  day,  and  will  continue  to  be  felt  in  the  future ; 
only  the  chain  of  cause  and  effect,  so  far  as  Madame  de 
Maintenon  had  a  hand  in  it,  will  remain  unrecognised  by 
most.  Yet  we  must  not  withhold  from  her  this  testimony, 
that  although  she  erred  greatly  and  did  much  harm,  she 
also  achieved  endless  good  and  scattered  countless  benefits 


xii  OF  FRENCH  HISTORY  415 

around  her  with  the  purest  intentions.  She  took  heavy 
burdens  upon  herself  for  the  sake  of  making  the  lives  of 
others  more  endurable  and  worthier.  Her  best  deeds 
originated  from  herself,  her  worst  mistakes  from  too  great 
a  trust  in  the  superiority  of  others.  The  rule  which  she 
gave  her  pupils,  to  be  severe  towards  themselves,  tender  and 
considerate  towards  others,  she  invariably  observed  herself. 
The  history  of  France  does  not  produce  any  woman  who 
surpasses  her  in  the  greatness  and  multiplicity  of  talents 
and  virtues. 


INDEX 


ABASSIDES 

Abassides,  the,  180 

Abelard,  178  ;  best  pupil  of,  177 

Abensburg,  139 

Acre,  192-194 

Aegidius  of  Eome,  75 

Aeneid,  the,  185 

Aesop's  Fables,  184 

Agapetus  II.,  71 

Agathos,  Pope,  71 

Al  Mamum,  Khaliph,  180 

Alaric,  59 

Albert  V.,  of  Bavaria,  37 

Alcuin,  177 

Aldhelm,  176 

Alemanni,  10 

Alexander,  171,  185;  conquest  by, 
165 

Alexandria,  165 

Alfred  the  Great,  21 

Allied  powers  and  the  Papacy, 
138 

Altars,  plurality  of,  74 

Amandus,  Bishop,  174 

Ambrose,  170 

Anabaptists,  the,  161 

Anagni,  105 ;  outrage  on  Boniface, 
136 

Anastasius,  Pope,  103 ;  Eoman  libra- 
rian, 174 

Anne  of  Austria,  328 

—  Beaujeu,  326 

Annius  of  Viterbo,  150 

Anthemius,  tale  of,  183 

Antigone,  181 

Antioch  on  the  Orontes,  165  ;  prin- 
cipality of,  191 

Apocalypse,  on  Rome,  58 

Apollonius  of  Tyre,  184 

Apostles,  the,  76 

Apuleius,  177 

Aquinas,  7,  175  ;  on  the  Jews,  220 


BALAAM 

Arabs,  the,  180 

Arisch,  192 

Aristotle,  90,  91,  177 ;  chief  master 
of  Dante,  102 ;  instructions  to 
Alexander,  171;  object  of  curiosity, 
179 

Aries,  Kingdom  of,  115 

Armagnac  faction,  the,  18 

Armanuro  of  Bologna,  96 

Arndt,  Ernst  Moritz,  23 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  65 

Arnulf,  61 

Aragon,  17 

Athens,  fame  of,  166 

Augsburg,  Chapter  of,  43 

Augustine,  170 

Augustus,  hypocrisy  of,  5;  the  age 
of,  164 

-  Philip,  192 

Aurelianus,  Coelius,  183 

Aurelius,  Marcus,  172 

Avarice,  Dante's  Wolf,  98;  of  the 
clergy,  112 

Aventin  and  his  times,  139 ;  works 
of,  140  sqq, ;  instructor  of  princes, 
142;  travels  of,  142 ;  anachronisms 
in  his  works,  149 ;  explanation 
of  writings,  151 ;  keynote  of  writ- 
ings, 153  ;  on  Italy,  156  ;  in  Paris, 
156 ;  forebodings  of,  157  ;  on  the 
clergy,  158  ;  religious  convictions 
of,  159  ;  last  years  of,  161 

Avignon,  106  ;  abode  of  the  woman, 
115;  papal  residence,  125 

Aytinger,  158 


Bacon,  Eoger,  179 

Bactria,  168 

Balaam  and  Jehosaphat,  184 

E  B 


418 


INDEX 


BALDWIN 

Baldwin,  last  Emperor,  194 

—  of  Troves,  132 

—  III.,  IV.,  V.,  197 
Ban  and  Interdict,  104 
Bargigi,  G.  delli,  95 
Bastiano  of  Gubbio,  87 

Bavaria,  in  early  times,  26 ;  an 
hereditary  dukedom,  35  ;  a  power, 
38  ;  aim  and  state  of,  39,  42,  43  ; 
allied  with  the  Palatinate,  47 ; 
Lord  Stair  on,  49  ;  occupied,  50  ; 
and  England's  action,  51 ;  people 
and  government,  56,  57;  under 
the  Emperor  Ludwig,  135  ;  Aven- 
tin  in,  139 ;  his  history  of,  143 ; 
decadence  of,  162 

Beatrice,  Dante's,  86,  88 ;  his  rela- 
tions to,  92  ;  a  symbol,  114 

Beatus  Rhenanus,  153 

Bebel  of  Tubingen,  149 

Bede,  170,  176 

Belgrade,  taking  of,  47 

Bernard  of  Chartres,  177 

—  Saint,  192,  195,  205 
Berney,  De,  186 
Berosus,  the  false,  150 
Berthold  of  Chiemsee,  158 
Biblical  study  of  the  Latins,  171 
Bilgard  executed,  178 
Birkenfeld,  House  of,  55 
Bishops,  the  Latin,  197 
Blanca  the  heiress,  16 
Blanche  of  Castile,  326 
Bonaventura,  96,  113 
Bonfini,  144 

Boniface,  Apostle  of  Germany,  50 

—  VIII.,   Pope,    bull   of,    67,    134; 
attack   on,    105 ;    pretensions   of, 
135 

-  IX.,  64 

Bonizo,  Bishop,  174 
Bourbon,  name  of,  21 
Braunau,  41 

Breach  of  the  Churches,  200 
Bremen,  Archbishop  of,  204 
Breyer,  139 

Bride  of  St.  Francis,  97 
Brothers  of  kings,  7 
Buchner,  120 
Buddha,  184 
Bull,  the  Golden,  137 
Buonaccorsi,  144 
Burggraf,  title  of,  27 
Burgundy,  46 
Burgundy  faction,  18 
Burkard,  200 

Byzantines,  189 ;  and  the  Latin 
forgeries,  199 


CLEMENT 

Cacciaguida,  82,  83 

Caesar,  title  of,  5 

Cahorsines,  106,  116 

Calisthenes,  185 

Callimachus,  144 

Camararius,  162 

Cambrai,  See  of,  131 

Campo  Formio,  51 

Can  Grande  della  Scala,  98,  99 

Canzoni  of  Dante,  87 

Capitularies  for  Italy,  60 

Carcassonne,  conference  at,  103 

Cardinals,  captivity  of  the,  116;  in 

France,  269 
Carducci,  117 
Carolingian  dynasty,  177 
Carpentras,  conclave  at,  115 
Casimir  of  Poland,  164 
Catharist  doctrine,  204 
Catherine  de'  Medici,  327 
Catholic  League,  the,  38-40 
Cecco  d'Ascoli,  111 
Celestine  V.,  108,  137 
Celibacy,  155 
Celsus,  167 

Cervino,  Cardinal,  156 
Chaise,  Pere  la,  377,  394,  402 
Chakan,  title  of,  8 
Chalcidius,  177 
Chapter,  Cathedral,  122 
Chariot,  vision  of  the,  111 
Charles  Albert,  47-49 

—  the  Great,  59,  60  ;  learning  under, 
176 

—  Theodore,  49-52 

-  II.  of  England,  20 

—  II.  of  Spain,  will  of,  301 

—  the  Bold,  61 

—  IV.  of  Luxemburg,  132,  107 

—  V.,  Emperor-King,  253 

-  VI.,  19,  47 
Chigi,  Cardinal,  289 
Chivalry  of  France,  191 
Christ  portrayed  by  Dante,  111 
Christianity,  rise  of,  170 
Christians,  the,  in  Syria,  189 
Chronicles   of    Aventin,    146,   161 ; 

German  imperial,  182 
Church,  the  Gallican,  360  passim 

—  German,  62,  133  passim 

—  Eoman,  corruption  of  the,  159 

—  and  the  Crusades,  190 

—  Latin  and  Greek,  199 

—  enslaving  dogmas  of  the,  208 
Cid,  the,  247 

Cistercians,  the,  136 
Civilisation,  modern,  171 
Clement  of  Rome,  76 


INDEX 


419 


CLEMENT 

Clement  IV.,  20,  49 

Clerc  de  Normandie,  204 

Clergy,  the,  at  Home,  64  ;  definition 

of,   67 ;     hostile   to   the  Empire, 

134 

Clermont,  Synod  of,  190 
Closener,  Fritzsche,  150 
Cluniac  monks,  17 
Colonists,  194 

Communities,  Christian,  170 
Comneni,  the,  6 
Concordat  of  Worms,  62 
Confederation  of  the  Khine,  53 
Conrad  of  Franconia,  11 
Conrad  III.,  192 
Constantine,  donation   of,  78,   102, 

112 
Constantinople,  church  of,  71 ;  safety 

of,  190  ;  in  1203,  193  ;  conquest  of, 

199 

Conversion,  205 
Convito,  Dante's,  88,  102 
Corvinus,  144 
Councils,  110,  205 
Count  Palatine,   29;    vote   of,   32; 

proclaimed  King,  39 
Counts  of  the  land,  27 
Credulity,  76 

Cross,  the,  as  talisman,  196 
Crusades,  the,  107,  190,   193,  194, 

195,  200,  203,  207 ;  effects  of,  on 

literature,  179 ;  against  Christians, 

204 
Curia,  the,  62  ;  simony  of,  105  ;  ruin 

by,  121 ;   official  dogma  of,  129 ; 

defence   against,    132 ;    and    the 

East,  201 ;  and  the  people  of  Gaul, 

206 
Cyprian,  the  acts  of,  76 ;  legend  of, 

183 


D 


Dalai  Lama,  the,  8 

Damascus,  Kaliphate  of,  189 

Damietta,  193 

Dante  as  a  prophet,  80  sqq. ;  as  a 
teacher,  95 ;  Divina  Commedia, 
104  ;  on  the  Empire,  106  ;  on  the 
crusades,  107  ;  and  Pope  Boniface, 
107 ;  and  Ghibellines  and  Guelphs, 
109,  117  ;  study  of,  117 

De  Semine  Scripttirarum,  99 

Decretals  of  Gratian,  122,  157; 
Isidore,  62,  76,  114 

Dtcroiser,  203 

Deuil,  Odo  de,  202 

Diaconia,  the,  73 


ELECTORS 

Diaconus,  Paulus,  176 
Diana  of  Poitiers,  327 
Dicu  le  vault,  191 
Divina  Commedia,  La,  82 
Dlugoss,  historian,  152 
Dogma,  195 
Dogmas,  Two,  208 
Dominicans,  the,  128 
Dragon,  Dante's,  100,  112 
Duchatel,  B.  of  Orleans,  156 
Dux,  Dante's,  96,  102,  115 
Dynasties,   significance   of,    1   sqq-', 
destruction  of,  22  ;  s'cn  vont,  24 

—  Achaemenidan,  3 

—  Assyrian,  3 

—  Babylonian,  3 

—  Bourbon,  17,  22 

—  Burgundian,  17 

—  Capetian,    11,    15,    17  ;    Valois, 
22 

—  Carlovingian,  11 

—  Comneni,  of  the,  6 

—  Constantine,  of,  5 

—  Egyptian,  2 

—  Habsburg,  12,  14  passim 

—  Hebrew,  4 

—  Heraclian,  5 

-  Holstein-Gottorp,  13 

—  Isaurian  (Iconoclast),  5,  21 

—  Japanese,  9 

—  Luxemburg,  12,  14 

—  Mecklenburg,  13 

—  Moslem  6 

—  Nemanian,  14 

—  Ommiades,  6 

—  Premysl,  14 


E 


Eastern  affair,  201  sqq. 

Eberhard,  Bishop  of  Salzburg,  148 

Eberlin,  151 

Eck,  Chancellor,  161 

Edessa,  191.  192 

Edict  of  Nantes,  306,  310,  387; 
restitution,  40 

Edward  the  Confessor,  21 

Effendis  of  Stamboul,  8 

Egyptians,  the,  189 

Ekkehard,  148 

El-Arisch,  191,  192 

Elections  of  emperors,  121-3 

Elective  rights,  12 

Elector  Palatine,  14 ;  and  the  Re- 
formation, 38 

Electorate  of  Cologne,  45 

Electors,  ecclesiastical,  12;  Prince, 
31 


420 


INDEX 


ELISABETH 

Elisabeth     Charlotte,     Duchess    of 

Orleans,  42,  353,  357,  376,  386 
Elsass  ceded,  41,  46 ;  Lord  Stair  on, 

49 

Emilio  Paolo,  144 
Emperor  from  the  North,  100 
Emperors,  phantom,  28 
Ennius,  '  Annals '  of,  167  ;  teaching 

of,  178 

Epic,  Dante's,  a  theodicy,  100 
Erasmus,    142 ;     hostile   to    Eome, 

155  ;  exalted  by  Aventin,  162 
Erudition,  Greek,  174 
Estrangement,  East  and  West,  175 
Etiquette,  wearisome,  19 
Eugene,  Prince,  48 
Eugenius,  Pope,  72  ;  III.,  192 
Eunoe,  Dante's  river,  94 
Excommunication,  122 
Exorcists,  order  of,  71 


Fabriano,  129 

Feltro,  Dante's,  94 

Fenelon,  356,  371 

Ferdinand    Maria    of  Bavaria,   42 ; 

Habsburg,  14,  37,  39,  40  ;  Spain, 

252 

Ferreto  of  Vicenza,  99 
Feudalism,  97 
Forcheim  decree,  12 
Forese,  88 

Forgeries,  Koman,  78,  122,  199 
Foscolo,  84 
France,  kings'    marriages,  18 ;  and 

Germany  13  cent.,  30  ;  condition 

of,  A.D.  1096,  196  ;  literary,  temp. 

Ludwig  I.,  135  ;  vide  XIV.,  etc. 
Franciscans,  Order  of,  127 
Frankenthal,  42 
Frederick,  the  Victorious,  34 

—  II.,  47,  101,  192  ;  treaty  of,  193  ; 
death  of  his  son,  192 

—  III.,  34,  37 

—  V.,  38 

Freedom,  intellectual,  187 

Freiburg,  46 

Freidank,  poet,  106,  193 

Freising,  Otto  of,  114 

'French  system,'  55 

Frenchmen  A.D.  1272,  21  ;  frontier 

1299,  126 
Fiissen,  treaty  of,  49 


Galen,  183 
Galileo,  186 


G 


HENRY 

Gallican  propositions,  402 

Gascons,  106,  116 

Gelasius,  sacramentary  of,  72 

Genghis  Khan,  8 

Gerbert,  71  ;  letters  of,  190 

Gerhoch,  134 

German,  Cardinal,  a,  62 

Germany,  Roman  influence  on,  69  j 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  79  ;  Aventin's 
views  of,  144;  aloof  from  the 
crusades,  191;  conditions  of ,  1096, 
196  ;  a  princes'  nursery,  2?,  32 

Girardin,  E.  de,  on  her  sex,  325 

Godet,  Bishop  of  Chartres,  362, 369, 
374,  389,  397-9 

Golden  bull,  13 

—  legend,  182 

Greco-Jewish  literature,  168 

Greek  Church,  14,  60  ;  fathers,  183  ; 
language  disused,  175 

Gregorian  system,  63 

Gregorovius,  107 

Gregory  the  Great,  70,  176  ;  and 
the  Jews,  217  ;  works  of,  70 

—  V.,  123 

-  VII.,  proclamation  of,  190 ; 
general  remission  under,  195 ; 
fou  idation  stones  of,  199 

—  IX.,  193 

—  of  Tours,  176 
Greyhound,  Dante's,  97 
Griffin,  Dante's,  90 
Grossfiirst,  title  of,  15 
Griinsleder,  martyr,  16 

Guelphs,  the,  31,  67  ;  as  mystics, 
100;  attitude  of,  towards  Dante, 
109 

Guizot,  181 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  40 

Guyon,  Mme.  de,  375  sqq. 


H 


Habsburg  family,  marriages,  18, 
19 ;  decay  in  Spain,  20 ;  gain  of 
Austria,  30 ;  and  the  Reformation, 
36 

Hadrian,  Emperor,  158  ;  VI.,  Pope, 
168,  180 

Hainault  under  Ludwig  I.,  32 

Hareem  education,  8  ;  effects  of,  19 

Hattin,  battle  at,  192 

Heiress  of  Truth,  the,  168 

Hellenism,  Christian,  172 

Henry  of  Mainz,  132 
-  V.  of  Germany  on   the  French, 
148 


INDEX 


421 


HENRY 

Henry  VII.  of  England  and  P.  Ver- 

gilio,  144 
Hereditary  succession,    12  ;    in  the 

German  Empire,  138 
Heresy  of  the  Eastern  Church,  199 
Hierarchy,  the  German,   133  ;   con- 
flict with  the  laity,  198 
Hilary,  170 
Hildebrand,   63;   revolution    under, 

157  ;  system  of,  205 
Hildegard,  Saint,  103 
Hippocrates,  school  of,  167  ;  works 

of,  181  ;  on  mental  disease,  183 
Hohenstaufen,  House  of,  12-28 ;  last 

emperor,  154 

Holland  under  Ludwig  I.,  32 
Holy  places,  possession  of  the,  106  ; 

recovery  of  the,  191 
Holy  Koman  Empire,  the,  36 
Holy  Spirit,  double  procession,  199 
Homer,  knowledge  of,  185 
Humanism,     141;     German,     142; 

Italian,  144 
Humbert,  Cardinal,  63  ;  de  Bomans, 

201 

Huss,  161 
Hutten,  Ulrich  von,  148,  151,  152 


Ignorance,  temp.  R.  Bacon,  179 

Iliad,  the,  185 

Imperial  election,  28,  30 

Imperium,  an,  126 

Indulgence,  theory  of,  208 

Indulgences,  195 

Indus,  the,  7 

Infallibility,  Papal,  129 

Influence  of  Greek  literature,  164 ; 

on  mankind,  186;  on  the  Eomans, 

167 
Inn,  valley  of  the,  34 ;  insurrection, 

A.D.    1525,     37  ;     absorbed,     43 ; 

spoiled,  51 
Innocent  III.,  68  ;  God's  vicegerent, 

128  ;  and  the  Crusade,  1204,  190, 

195  ;  and  the  Jews,  205,  219,  227 
-  XL,  290 
Inquisition,  the,  129 
Interdict  and  Ban,  104 
Interest,  forbiddal  of,  224;  effects,227 
Interests,  dynastic,  138 
Interpolation,  1  John  v.  7, 175 
Interregnum,  imperial,  155 
Investitures,  war  of,  148 
Irene,  Empress,  22 
Isabella  of  Spain,  252 


KALIPH 

Isar,  the,  and  Lower  Rhine,  45 
Isidore,  Decretals  of,  62,  76,  157 
Islam,  the  founder  of,  84  ;  the  van- 
quisher, 207 

Italy,  Franco-Gallic  invasion  of,  11 ; 
Latin  influences  in,  30;  last  im- 
perial struggle  in,  31  ;  condition 
of,  A.D.  1096,  196 


Jacob  of  Cahors,  127,  130 

Jansenists,  the,  388,  404 

Jaroslav,  15 

Jerome,  170,  175;  chronicle  of,  178  ; 
of  Prague,  161 

Jerusalem,  llth  century,  189  ;  taken, 
191;  lost,  192;  Richard  I.  at, 
192  ;  cession  by  Kameel,  193 ; 
plundered,  194 

Jesuits,  the,  396  passim 

Jews,  early  spread  of  the,  168  ;  dis- 
persion and  treatment,  212 ; 
Primitive  Church,  attitude  to- 
wards, 214  ;  and  the  Christian 
emperors,  215  ;  compulsory  con- 
versions of,  215  ;  effect  of  the 
Crusades  on,  216  ;  and  Gregory  the 
Great,  217;  Pope  Stephen  VI,, 
218;  Innocent  III.,  219;  Celes- 
tine  III.,  218  ;  Eugene  IV.,  219 ; 
slavery  of,  220  ;  massacres  of,  222  ; 
plague  among,  223  ;  treatment  of, 
in  England,  229  ;  in  France,  230  ; 
in  Italy,  232  ;  in  Portugal,  233  ;- 
in  Spain,  231  ;  Christianised,  235  ; 
effects  of,  236 ;  increase  of,  239 ; 
present  position  of,  240 

Joachim,  Abbot,  96 

Joan,  Pope,  149 

Joanna  L,  16 ;  II.,  17 

John,  King  of  France,  18 ;  XII., 
Pope,  62  ;  XXIL,  128 ;  of  Damas- 
cus, 144  ;  of  Salisbury,  177 

Jordan,  kingdom  on  the,  197 

Joseph  Clement  of  Cologne,  43 

Jubilee,  institution  of  the,  75 

Judaism  Hellenized,  171 

Jiilich,  town  of,  36 

Justina,  acts  of,  76  ;  legend  of,  183 

Justinian  and  his  successors,  173 

Justinus,  3 


Kaaba,  keys  of  the,  7 
Kaliph,  title  of,  6 


422 


INDEX 


KAMEEL 

Kameel,  Sultan,  193 
Kar;ijan,  207 

Karl  Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  41 
Kelheim,  bridge  of,  27 
Kingdom  at  Jerusalem,  191  ;  cause 
of  downfall  of  the,  207,  208 


Lahnstein,  33 

Laity  and  hierarchy,  198 

Lamprecht,  186 

Landshut,  rise  of,  27 

Languedoc,  Crusade  against,  204 

Latin,  a  dead  language,  75  ;  learn- 
ing, 170 ;  prayers,  73 

Law,  canonical,  133 

Lefevre  of  Etaples,  160 

Legendary  history,  149 

Leibnitz,  45,  268,  307,  309,  322 

Leo  IX.,  63 

Leopold,  Emperor,  43 ;  treaty  with 
France,  46 

Letters,  numerical  meaning  of,  99 

Library  of  Alexandria,  165 

Limina  Apostolorum,  69 

Linus,  76 

Literature,  daily,  143;  Greek,  164, 
173,  179  ;  Hellenistic,  169  ;  dawn 
of  Latin  element,  170  ;  decay  of 
Latin  element,  174 ;  effects  of 
Crusades  on,  179 

Liturgy,  Greek,  200 ;  Koman,  170 

Lombards,  the,  10 

Lorraine,  dynasty  of,  47  ;  election 
of  the,  49 

Lothringen,  46  ;  Lord  Stair  on,  49 

Louis  IX.,  21 ;  invades  Syria,  194, 
207 

—  XII.  and  Paolo  Emilio,  144 

—  XIV.,  policy  of,  265,  324  ;  own 
memoirs,  266  sgg. ;  character  of, 
267,  283,  314,  44,  56  ;    and   the 
Church   and  Pope,  266,  70,  306, 
10,  62,  401 ;  and  the  Monarchy, 
home,  273  ;  universal,  299  ;  educa- 
tion of,  273,  326  ;  "  Gloire,"  283  ; 
bribery  of,  285 ;  towards  the  em- 
pire,   292;    Protestantism,    296; 
wars   and   intrigues   of,   298 ;    in 
1685,    306;    and    the    Edict    of 
Nantes,  306,  10,  87  ;  and  the  War 
of  Succession,  311,  384  ;  and  the 
Pretender,  313 ;  effects  of  policy 
of,  317  ;  mistresses  of,  329  ;  influ- 
ence of  Mme.  Scarron,  282,  356  ; 
summary,  317  ;    vide   Maintenon, 
Mme.  de 


MATILDA 

Louise  of  Savoy,  327 

Louvois,  291 

Ludwig,  Duke,  27 

—  I.,   Emperor,  30  ;    in  Italy,   31  ; 

treaty  of    1333,   131  ;    humiliated 

and  dies,  132;  reflections  on,  133; 

old  German  Empire  ended  with, 

137 

Luitpold,  Duke,  26 
Lupercalia,  70 
Luxemburg,  Count  of,  29 


M 

Maas,  the,  126 

Macchiavelli,  117 

Magus,  Simon,  76 

Maintenon,  Mme.  de,  325-415 ;  views 
of,  331,  350  ;  letters  of,  330,  354 
passim ;  and  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
333 ;  family  of,  399 ;  as  royal 
governess,  340;  appears  at  court, 
340  ;  marriage  of,  342  ;  character 
of,  355,  67,  86  ;  early  influence  of, 
358  ;  inward  struggles  of,  361,  70, 
77,  84  ;  physical  debility  of,  363  ; 
beneficence  of,  365  ;  and  Mary  of 
Modena,  367  ;  and  the  Sulpicians, 
368,  401 ;  and  Quietists,  375  ;  and 
Jansenists,  388,  406  ;  and  Jesuits, 
396,  398  ;  and  Fenelon,  371,  8  ; 
and  Saint  Cyr,  379  passim ;  poli- 
tical influence  of,  361,  382  ;  and 
Protestantism,  387  ;  and  the  War 
of  Succession,  384 ;  conversion 
of  the  King,  392 ;  authority  in 
the  Church  of,  399,  409  ;  summary, 
410 ;  compared  with  Maria  Theresa, 
413  ;  vide  Louis  XIV. 

Mainz,  45 

Malaspina,  87 

Mammert,  120 

Manuscripts,  Greek,  179,  180 

Marangoni,  70 

Marbach,  League  of,  34 

Marca,  G.  della,  129 

Marcellus  II.,  156 

Margraviats  of  Anspach,  50  ;  of  Bay  - 
reuth,  50 

Maria  Theresa,  49,  50,  413 

Marigni,  the  brothers,  136 

Marsiglio,  130,  131 

Martin  L,  174 

-  IV.,  206 

Martyrdom,  186 

Martyrs  in  France  and  Italy,  129 

Mary  de'  Medici,  328 

Matilda,  Dante's,  87,  93,  94,  111 


INDEX 


423 


MATTHIAS 

Matthias,  Emperor,  39 
Max,  Emanuel,  42,  3,  7 

—  Joseph  III.,  49,  52 
Maximilian  I.,  38 

—  II.,  56 

—  III.,  49 

—  Emperor,  32 
Mazarin,  42,  289,  303,  318 
Mechtilde,  Dante's,  93 
Medicine,  science   of,    167 ;    of   the 

Arabs,  180 

Meditations  of  M.  Aurelius,  172 
Medusa,  glance  of,  91 
Melancthon,  150 ;  and  Aventin,  161 
Menco,  196 

Merlin,  a  prediction  of,  96,  101 
Merovingians,  the,  10 
Mesopotamia,  192 
Metaphrastes,  182 
Middle  ages,  end  of  the,  35 
Mikados,  the,  9 
Milan,  dukedom  of,  46 
Minorites,  the,   97 ;   controversy  of, 

128 

Mohammed,  7,  194 
Monarchy,  1 
Mongols,  the,  8 
Monk,  a  Minorite,  133 
Monotheism,  growth  of,  169 
Montecuculi,  45 
Moreto,  the  work  of,  73 
Muffel,  Nicholas,  69 
Munich,  rise  of,  26  ;  school  of  Art  of, 

55 

Museum  of  Alexandria,  165 
Mystics,  the  97  ;  books  of  the,  100  ; 

and  Ludvvig  I.,  127,  130,  135 
Myth,  the  Trojan,  185 


N 


Nantes,  edict  of,  306,  310 

Naples,  49 

Nassau,  House  of  Orange,  18 

Nazareth,  193 

Noo-Platonists,  the,  183 

Neo-Pythagoreans,  the,  169 

Neri,  Mastery  of  the,  115 

Neuberg,  35 

Nicholas  I.,  199 

Nihil  indesper antes,  176 

Nimeguen,  treaty  of,  308 

Noailles,  de,  396 

Nogaret,  136, 137 

Novatian,  170 

Noyon,  11 


POEMS 

Occam,  130 

Odyssey,  the,  185 

Ogotai,  8 

Oligarchy,  electoral,  29 

Olivarez,  258 

Omniades,  the,  180 

Orange,  William  of,  306 

Ordela,  the,  71 

Origen,  exegesis,  171 ;  a  heretic,  178  ; 
teaching  of,  183 

Osmanli,  the,  208 

Osnabriick,  177 

Ostrogoths,  the,  10 

Otto  the  Great,  16,  61 ;  and  Borne, 
63  ;  of  Wittelsbach,  26  ;  the  Illus- 
trious, 27  ;  of  Brandenburg,  123  ; 
Henry,  the  Elector,  37 


Palatinate,  the,  16,  27,  31,  34,  38, 
42,  47,  50 

Palestine,  dialect  of,  168 

Palestrina,  65 

Pallium  fees,  22 

Pamphlet,  the,  136 

Panslavism,  14 

Papacy,  the,  30 ;  in  France,  30 ;  degra- 
dation of,  61 ;  in  the  Commedia, 
104 ;  becomes  French,  125  ;  influ- 
ence in  Germany,  155 

Paradise,  the  earthly,  111 

Paris,  University  of,  135,  166,  177 

Partition  of  kingdoms,  10  ;  of  Wit- 
telsbach, 28 

Paschal,  Pope,  192 

Patriotism,  temp.  Aventin,  144 

Pelagius,  Bishop,  134  ;  Pope's  legate, 
193 

Penalty  for  reading  Virgil,  178 

Penance,  195,  208 

Pepin  le  Bref,  59 

Periodicals,  143 

Persia,  laws  of,  3 

Peutinger,  153 

Philip  II.  of  France,  16 

—  II.  of  Spain,  254,  258 

—  V.  of  Spain,  20,  259 
-  the  Fair,  125,  135 
Philo,  169 
Piedmont,  30 

Pietro  di  Dante,  94 

Pilgrims,  194  ;  vows  of,  203 

Plasian,  William  of,  136 

Plato,  169 

Plutarch,  168 

Poems,  the  Orphic,  169 


424 


.  knightly,  162 

Polenta,  da,  110 

Policy,  fatal.  7;  of  the  Capet?.  17  : 
marriage?  of.  8  :  common,  for  Ger- 
many, 41  ;  of  Louis  XIV..  205- 

Polybius,  161 

;.-syny.  3.  8 

Tope  infallible,  the.  128.  129 
Popes,    German,    63 ;    divine  right 

of,     207 ;     undertakings    of    the. 

194 

Porphyrogennet 
Possemtinster.  150 
Pragmatic  sanction,  a  new.  23 

mentions  at.  39 
Preger,  93 
Pribislaw.  13 

Priest,  a  German,  1288.  206 
Prince  electors,  137  ;  college  of  the. 

149 

Principalities,  German.  12 
Prophesy,  authors  on,  100 
Prophets  of  the  0.  T..  SO 
Protestantism,  spread  of,  36 
Prussia  lost  to  Poland.  145 
Pseudo-sciences.  ISO 
Public  opinion,  1806,  54 
Pullani,  the,  196 
Purgatory.  Dante's.  89 
Purification.  Mount  of.  91 
Pyrenean  peninsula,  16 
Pyrenees,  treaty  of  the,  303 
Pythagoras.  196  ;  doctrines  of.  167 


Q 


Quesnel's  book,  407 
Question,  the  Eastern,  188  209 
Quietists.  the.  375 
Quirinal,  the,  79 


R 


Races,  4  sqq. 

Rambaldi,  95 

Ranke  and  Thiers,  265 

Rastatt,  peace  of,  47 

Ratgeb,  martyr,  161 

Ratisbon.   '27.    44  ;    martyrdoms  at, 

161 
Ravenna.  59 ;  seat  of  government. 

64;  Panic's  residence.  110:  death 

at,  117 
Raynald,  126 
Recognitions.  Romance  of  ll  > .  .7 


SICILY 

Reformation,  the.  35.  37  :  .and  Aven 
tin.  141 

Religion.  Buddhist.  Sin  fa.  8 

Reuse.  31  :  declaration  of,  132 

Republics  I'crsus  Monarchies.  -J4 

Resuscitation  of  learning,  173 

Retrogression.  183 

Rhabanus.  171 

Rhine  frontier,  the.  126 

Richard  I.  of  England.  192 

Richelieu.  40 

Rieder,  treaty  of.  5  I 

Rieimer.  59 

Rien/.i,  Cola  di.  05 

Rittersit/.e.  13 

Robber  nests.  34 

Robbery,  highway.  1 52 

Robert 'of  Naples.  125 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  64 

Rome  and  Germany.  5S-79 :  invasion 
of.  58.  59  :  and  Byzantium.  59  : 
and  the  Franks.  59 ;  crowns 
Charles  the  Great.  60 ;  a  sacerdotal 
ciiy.  04 :  the  'red  thread.'  65; 
history.  65.  08.  79  :  state  of  learn- 
ing in.  70:  and  elections.  T2'2 : 
German  feeling  towards,  155  ; 
culture  of.  104:  the  centre  of  the 
universe.  166  ;  the  Greeks  in.  166; 
thrice  plundered.  173 

Royal  marriages.  18,  19.  29,  37 

Rudolf  of  Habsburg.  29.  103  ;  elec- 
tion of.  123;  and  the  Pope.  1'25 

Rufinus,  177 

Rupert  III.,  33,  138 

Russia  first  meddling,  50 

Ryswick.  Peace  o 


S 

Saint-Cyr.  379 
Saint -Simon.  323.  333 
Saladin's  victory.  192 
Salic  law.  15.  10.  23 
Sanctity,  conditions  "of,  130 
Satan,  compact  with,  184 
Savoy,  dukes  of,  18 
Saxony  and  the  Imperial  Hous. 
Scheffer-Boichoiv 
Sehonbrunn.  treaty  of.  5  t 
School.  Aristotelian,  180;  of  Salerno, 

181  :  of  Montpellier.  181 
Senoriat.  8.  !."> 
Sergius  IV..  190 
Shiites.  the,  6 
Shosun.  the,  9 
Sibyls,  the.  169 
Sicily.  49 


INDEX 


425 


SIMMERN 

Simmern,  37,  41 

Simony,  99,  100 ;  of  Boniface  VIIL, 

108  ;  nurtured  in  Home,  112 
Song  of  songs,  88 

Spain,  11,  18;  and  the  Moslems, 
243;  Asturias,  244;  and  the 
Mosarabians,  244;  Christian  ad- 
vance in,  245 ;  early  history  of, 
246  ;  and  the  forged  tablets,  249  ; 
Maria  of  Agreda,  250;  Christian 
victories,  251 ;  Christian  delay, 
251 ;  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  252; 
Charles  V.,  253 ;  Philip  II.,  254 ; 
Philip  III.,  257  ;  Philip  IV.,  258  ; 
Philip  V.,  Bourbon,  259  ;  Charles 
III.,  260  ;  intellectual  relations  of, 
with  France,  260,  262  ;  with  Ger- 
many, 261,  263 

Stair,  Lord,  49 

State  of  the  Empire,  1705,  44 

Statute  of  Primogeniture,  35 

Stedinger,  House  of,  204 

Stein,  Baron  von,  54 

Stephen  Duschan,  14 

Stoics,  doctrines  of  the,  167 

Strabo  on  the  Jews,  212 

Strasburg,  46 

Struggles  with  the  Papacy,  119,  154 

Succession,  War  of  the,  311 

Suevi,  the,  59 

Suleiman  II.,  7 

Sulpicians,  the,  368 

Sulzbach,  35 

Sunnis,  the,  6 

Sutri,  63 

Switzerland,  46, 145,  301 

Sylvester  IL,  174 

-  Bishop,  170 

Symbolism,  70 

Syria,  189,  198 


Tasso,  88 

Teaching,  the  M  >saic,  169 

Teschen,  Peace  of,  50 

Thecla,  Acts  of,  76 

Theodore  of  Tai-sus,  176 

Theologians,  French,  136 

Theophilus,  legend  of,  77,  183 

Theurgy,  76 

Thiers  and  Kanke,  265 

Thirty  Years'  War,  14,  39 

Thugut,  51 

Tiberias,  principality  of,  191 

Timaeus  of  Plato,  the,  177 

Tolommeo  of  Lucca,  123 

Torring,  Count,  48 


Traffic   in  election,   12,  146;   sins, 

195 

Translation,  theory  of,  126 
Treatise  on  monarchy,  93 
Trebur,  Synod  of,  6 
Triple  Alliance,  the,  305 
Tripoli,  principality  of,  191 
Trithemius,  Abbot,  152 
Truce,  the  ten  years',  193 
Turks,  the,  148,  189 
Tuscany,  46 
Tusculum  and  its  Counts,  63,  65 


U 


Ubertino  da  Casale,  109 
Urban  IL,  190,  195 ;  discovery  by, 
203 

—  VI.,  schism  under,  66 

—  VIIL,  40 
Urosch  V.,  14 
Urraca  of  Castile,  17 
Usury,  176,  224 
Utrecht,  Peace  of,  386 
Uzes,  Kobert  of,  103 


Vandals,  the,  59 

Vandemont,  47 

Vatican,  the,  79 

Veltro,  Dante's,  94,  98,  113 

Verona,  the  Prince  of,  95 

Vienna,  the  Turks  at,  148 

Vienne,  Council  at,  176, 

Vincam  Domini,  400 

Vine  become  a  briar,  114 

Virgil,  83,  86  ;  a  prophet,  91  ;  works 
of,  prohibited,  178 ;  almost  idolised, 
185  ;  character  of  his  work,  185 

Virgilis,  Polidoro,  144 

Visigoths,  the,  10 

Vision  of  the  chariot,  111 

Vitalian,  Pope,  176 

Viterbo,  10 

Vitry,  Jacob  de,  196  ;  James  de,  202 

Viziers,  the,  7 

Vogelweide,  von  der,  106 

Voragine,  J.  de,  182 


W 

Walafrid,  171 
Waldenses,  the,  113,  204 
Wallenstein,  release  of,  40 
War  of  Succession,  the,  311,  384 

F    F 


426 


INDEX 


WARFARE 


Warfare,  religious,  204-206 

Weimar,  55 

Wenceslaus  (Wenzel),  33,  157 

Wend  language,  the,  14 

Wendish  nations,  205 

Westphalia,  Peace  of,  41,  46,  295 

White  Hill,  39 

William  and  Ludwig,  a  contrast,  120 
-  V.  of  Bavaria,  38,  161 

Wimpfeling  the  Credulous,  153 

Winfrid,  59 

Wittelsbach,  House  of,  26-57  ;  power 
of,  28  ;  disruption  of,  32 ;  and 
Austria,  34 ;  decline  of,  34  ;  the 
Reformation,  35  ;  opposition, 
internal,  38  ;  deposition  of,  43  ; 
renewed  prospects,  47,  extinc- 
tion of  direct  line,  49 ;  Kaunitz 
on,  50;  characteristics  of,  56, 
annals  of,  57 


ZWEIBRUCKEN 


Wittenberg,  141,  160 

Wladimir,  15 

Women  in  France,  influence  of,  325 

Worms,  Concordat  of,  121 


X 

Xenodochia,  the,  73 


Z 


Zeller,  valley  of  the,  34 

Zirngibl,  120 

Zoroaster,  3 

Zurich,  141 

Zweibrncken,  37  ;  -Birkenfeld,  52 


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